Day 21: Try thinking like a scientist

meet Anjelika Deogirikar Grossman

Hello, friends—

Congrats on three weeks of the project! As always, remember it all counts—no matter how many days you’ve done. The important thing is to keep showing up. If you’ve missed a day (or more), you can still jump back in. And if you’re just joining us, any day is a great day to get started.

By now, patterns are starting to emerge—in your work, yes, but also in how you’re thinking about it and how you’re showing up. Today we have an interview with Anjelika Deogirikar Grossman, an artist and scientist who thinks about her creative practice like running an experiment: repeat something, observe what changes, notice what you learn. I love this perspective because it turns repetition into a tool for paying attention. If you’ve found yourself getting bored with your project, this way of thinking might help.

Tell us a little about your 100-day projects.

I’m excited to join the community again this year! Last year, I shared a bit about my experiences with The 100 Day Project; I started my journey with my first project in 2020 entitled “Democracy Postcards.”

As I look back on my projects, I notice that I’ve given myself permission to dive deeper into a specific process or medium. Sometimes, I have not made it all the way to 100 days, but each year I have committed to personal experimentation, in community with others.

My past highlights include #AnjelikaMakesMarks from 2021 when I wanted to practice the technical side of still-life drawing. And in 2023, I tried to bridge between the educator and artist to develop Creative Curiosity Cards that centered on the question of “How might we use our creative practice as a platform to be curious about others?”

In 2024 and 2025, I did not share publicly about my own 100 Day Projects and I got the furthest along those years. (In 2025, a friend and I shared our progress with each other.) In those years, I felt liberated when I did not worry about posting. But I also recognize now that there is power in being part of a collective community both for accountability and also encouragement (especially around day 70, when my energy for the project is usually at a low point).

When you look across all of them, what keeps showing up in your work—even when the medium changes? Is there a thread that feels distinctly “you”?

I’ve noticed that I enjoy the projects when I’m focusing on learning or building a process — for example, trying to build my creative muscle around watercolor calligraphy or drawing. I find that there is something magical that happens with repetition.

Through repetition, I challenge myself to notice a process over and over. The thread that feels authentically me is about approaching a project as a scientific experiment.

When working in a lab on an experiment, reproducibility is important — you need to be able to repeat an experiment over and over. Each time, you are collecting data not only on the outputs, but also what variables or factors might be changing (maybe you used a different pipette, or maybe the temperature in the lab shifted a bit). I think I approach my creative practice and my 100 day projects in a similar way: repeatability while allowing myself just enough spontaneity to keep evolving.

You’ve talked about repetition as “building a muscle” and “eliminating variables” so you can focus. For people who are starting to notice patterns in their work right now, how do you know when repetition is deepening the work versus when it’s time to change something?

In education, we describe this liminal space of your “growth zone” when you are challenged beyond your comfort zone, but not too far to your panic zone when you are often paralyzed by fear. (Check out the graphic at the bottom of this article by my mentor and friend Stacey Kertsman.)

There’s this exciting moment in my creative practice when I’m in the growth zone – my creativity is focused and I feel challenged and fulfilled. This sensation is often described as a “flow state” originating from pioneering psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work on flow theory, which is the state when you can become so focused on an activity that you lose a sense of time. (This is extensively described in his 1990 book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.” He also expanded on this idea specifically in his 1996 book “Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention” (in particular Chapter 5 “The Flow of Creativity”).)

For me, keeping the variables limited allows me to focus on building my muscle around a process. Repetition allows me to not be precious about what I’m working on because I know that I’m continuing to iterate. And repetition gives me the space to ask questions about the process along the way.

I think there’s an exciting moment when you’re able to build connective tissue from a project you’ve been iterating on to then something else. I think this is a recognition that the repetition helped you build a new way of seeing the world that you might not have been able to experience previously.

I love how you connect your scientific training to your art practice. How does thinking like a scientist help you “look closer” at your creative process? What are you experimenting with right now?

The 100 Day Project has given me the container to experiment for the sake of experimentation. I discovered how liberating to recognize that there is learning in the doing.

In last year’s project “Fancy Cancels,” I realized I have so many colored pencils I was not using so I set the parameters to ink and colored pencils to sketch and draw canceled postage stamps from the National Postal Museum. (I’m sharing a page from my sketchbook of that project for the first time!) Looking at the collection of canceled international stamps closely, I noticed how much care and detail are in each design. You could say those constraints developed out of a scientist’s efficient use of equipment on-hand.

As I described earlier, repetition and iteration in my creative practice stem from my experiences of working in a lab. This mindset has also transformed the way I use my sketchbook as a lab notebook. Last year, I recorded not only my sketch of a stamp but also made blind contour sketches, focused on specific typography, and tested color matching. While I’ve always been an avid stamp collector, this project gave me a new found appreciation for the art of stamps.

I also built on last year’s project to build a connective tissue to my collage project. I’ve since been more intentional to incorporate postage stamps into my collage practice, and to take time and care to notice the stamps that I’m selecting in my work.

You’ve described “noticing” as a form of care. Has The 100 Day Project changed how you notice your life?

Yes! In this attention economy, I believe that when we notice, we give our attention to something or someone and that is a way to show that we care. There are many ways we can spend our time, and The 100 Day Project has been a helpful reminder to me of how important my creative practice is to my curiosity. And the more I spend time with my creative practice, I feel that I’ve been building my creative muscle to be more aware of my surroundings. I also love the aspect of community connection through The 100 Day Project because it also gives me insight into what others care about too.

Anything else you’d like to share?

While I’m still figuring out my own project for this year, this is also a reminder to start whenever you can. I’m not late and you are not late either!

The 100 Day Project has been a reminder of how my creative practice is centered on building and fostering community. While I will just be starting (and we’re nearly a month in), I feel the power of this community. And it’s incredible to see how individuals’ work continues to grow and iterate along the next couple weeks. (And often it takes a lot longer to complete for various reasons.)

Finally, I have some upcoming workshops in-person and online so I hope I’ll get to connect with some of you. I post about programming on my Instagram page and am working to update my website too. Happy creating!

Thank you, Anjelika! Let’s follow her lead and look at our projects with a little more curiosity. If this were an experiment, what would you notice?

FOR YOUR PROJECT TODAY

Take a look at the variables in your project. If this were an experiment, what are the elements that stay the same? What changes? For example:

• the materials you’re using

• the size or format

• the time of day you work

• the steps you follow each time

• the mood you bring to it

Bonus: Anjelika also reminds us that creative practice happens in community. Take a moment to say hello to someone else doing the project. You can:

• check the tagged photos of @dothe100dayproject to see the latest posts, or

• scroll Notes here on Substack and find someone to respond to

FOR INSPIRATION

Anjelika works with clear variables—repeating subjects like canceled stamps, hands, or calendar pages using the same materials—so she can observe what shifts through repetition. What else do you see?

Art and images by Anjelika Deogirikar Grossman

SHARE IN THE CHAT

Anjelika brings her scientist mindset to her creative practice—experimentation, observation, iteration. What part of your life might you bring into yours? Maybe it’s how you cook, organize, teach, garden, research, or solve problems. Tell us what perspective or skill from the rest of your life shows up in your creative process.

XO,
Lindsay