52 projects…

let it be known that i am not an artist. i can’t translate the beautiful ideas - luminous color and white-capped waves - in my head to canvas. i can’t transform brushstrokes to something so wholly awe-inspiring, it’s practically mythic. i can’t even draw a straight line. i’ve tried collage, painting, even pottery, and i always find that i have most command of my ideas leaving my hands only when a pen is in them. the pen for me is an easily controlled instrument. i don’t need varying brush widths and oils, acrylics or silks; i just need a pen that can move as fast as i can think. as fast as i can rid the voices, the faces fully formed - characters, images and stories - and give them free reign on the page. this is my art of comfort.

so i’ve always found myself intimidated by “project” books, craft books with papier mache covers and alpaca scarves knitted so effortlessly it makes me scream. they’re pretty to look at, pick up, and thumb through, however, they were never quite right for me. the girl whose stories were strung up against a wall alongside colorful pictures with families under pregnant trees and children and their little dogs padding the green. so i was slightly hesitant when approaching Jeffrey Yamaguchi’s 52 projects - well, that is until i devoured the entire book in one sitting.

Jeffrey Yamaguchi extends an invitation to indulge one’s inner artist by committing yourself to one creative project a week for 52 weeks. 52 Projects chronicles the author’s artistic journey over the course of one year and how it changed his life-and also offers 52 jumping-off points for the reader’s own creative inspiration

and i was inspired. these are inventive, fun projects that are wallet-friendly and fitting for those who combined twelve different colored paints thinking they’d invent a whole new pallet of color, but only came up with a morose brown. translation: you can be artistically blind, deaf and dumb and still feel like you’re creating the things you did as a child - all smart projects, some with charming whimsy.

so i jetted around the city, inspired by project #3 (Get your camera. Get on the train. Take the train to the end of the line. Take photos) i decided to document the homes i lived. little italy, the upper west side, chelsea, brooklyn, long island, fordham section of the bronx, riverdale (all homes lived except my former battery park apartment, where my ex, i believe, currently resides). i would take pictures of the door frames and some surrounding shops and tell stories about them. minor haunts, major landmarks, signs that render direction. this was all well and good in little italy until my camera acted up and wouldn’t work no matter how many double A batteries i purchased from local bodegas. no loss, really. a project in progress.

i plan on studying an obscure artist’s work, photocopy old letters and resend them as a care package to long-time friends, send an anynomous care package to my dearest friend, chock-full of all the things i know she adores, wake up at five and do all the things in the quiet dawn that i’ve longed to do, list the years i’ve been alive and write a significant memory for each year, fun, inventive photography projects, create your ideal job - amazing how such a slim, small book could be bursting with sweet ideas to rock out to.

so if you want to play, run around the city like a little banshee, relive your best life, check out 52 Projects and get creative.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 20th, 2006 at 9:13 am and is filed under get crafty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.