Sunday, December 21, 2008

The story so far ...

I started this blog to squirrel away some of my found poems, hiding them in plain sight and not drawing attention to them. But now that I'm posting for public consumption, I have to lay them out: There they are, the first posts, for everyone to ignore, because they're not the point anymore. Until another one comes along, then it might sneak in here.

The point now is, I've joined the fun at the fun-a-day project by artclash again this year, having chosen a project and pledged to do one thing for that project every day in January. At the same time, anyone else who wants to is working on their own project, then we all get together at Studio 34 on February 14 and show off our goods to each other and everyone else. This will be the fifth year Artclash has been at it; it'll be my second year participating. My first year, I made 31 stencils, and those became the custom prayer flags I make.

This year, I'm making art for its own sake, for its exploration and communication value. As soon as I start making stuff for the purpose of selling it, it becomes not-so-much art to me. It's the process that I get the most out of, not the finished product, so I constantly need to be making something new if I'm going to learn anything. The year 2008 has mostly been about laying fallow, grounding myself, taking things in and breaking them down. In 2009 it's time for things to start pouring out again, having magically recombined into something not immediately recognizable. It is, after all, the year of the ox.

I'm using this year's fun-a-day project as a jumping off point and doing a swap a day, making stuff and mailing it to somebody I've never met, in exchange for getting something similar from someone who's never met me. Every day I get to make/mail something completely different from the day before, while under the same rubric. Brought to me by swap-bot. Then at the end of the project, I'll show off everything I've gotten next to pictures of everything I've sent. And I'm gonna blog about the whole thing too!