Day 29: how does curiosity show up in your creative practice?

+ our weekly check-in

Hello, friends!

Four weeks in! That’s a whole month of making you might not have otherwise done. Amazing! KUDOS to you. You might be noticing that as you do your project, your creative aperture is widening. For my project, I’m painting…but I’m also writing more, picking up my camera more, and seeing more. I feel more awake. What a gift. But enough about me! Let’s talk about you.

Let’s do a check-in.

• What are you doing more of and less of?

• What are you noticing?

• How is your project feeling?

• What do you want to commit to this week?

Remember: it doesn’t matter if you miss a day (or several), only that you pick back up. If your project isn’t working for you, it’s not some big moral failure. Maybe it just doesn’t work for you for now. Let yourself experiment. Trust that your desire to participate was true and meaningful. The commitment is to showing up, not to doing the project you planned. If the project you planned is going great, great! If not, also great! What’s it trying to tell you?

I’m passing the baton to this week’s guest contributor,

Anjelika Deogirikar Grossman

. Anjelika is a Washington, DC educator, activist artist, and researcher – and long-time friend of the project.

Our theme this week is curiosity.

Here’s Anjelika:

Dear Creatives,

When I was living in San Francisco, I remember coming across a new hashtag, #The100DayProject on Instagram, which I now realize might have been that first year of the 100 Day Project on IG. Imagine a time long ago when hashtags were novel! A friend from undergrad, who was also living in San Francisco, posted about starting a “100 Day Project.” While I did not ask her if she ever finished, the idea of building a habit stuck with me.

It remained in the back of my mind for years, though I never committed to my own 100 Day Project until 2020. Over the years, I tried to build my creative muscles in different ways, often centered on photography — I took a photo of the San Francisco Bay Bridge from the same spot whenever I would walk by, or I took a photo of my breakfast when I got my own apartment in San Francisco. When I moved to Washington, D.C. for graduate school, I took a photo of the quad from the same spot every time I came on campus. I realized the love I have for repetition. Repetition allows me to see how something changes over time — or perhaps it’s noticing how my own perspective changes over time.

democracypostcards

A post shared by @democracypostcards

I launched my first #The100DayProject on April 8, 2020 when I launched #100democracypostcards2020. Those lockdown days were a surreal time, and I was turning to my creative practice for moments of groundings. During that time, I also found that creatives and artists were building community and connections in such meaningful ways through online programming that created a sense of belonging.

Over time, I’ve been building a creative muscle centered around curiosity.

I’m excited to join you this week as you are moving through your own #The100DayProject. Each day, I will include one prompt that you can use for a 3-minute free-write. I use warm-ups in my creative practice, including these 3-minute free-writes, to overcome my “fear” of the blank page. (Thanks to the Creative Fuel Community for introducing me to free-writing.)

My love of repetition shows up in this way as I often rotate through these similar questions — I like noticing how my thoughts on curiosity and my creative practice have shifted, changed or crystallized over time.

Today’s three-minute free-write: How does *curiosity* show-up in my creative practice?

Anjelika

P.S. Here’s the link to submit your art for our next Reel!