Tag: project 365

Meet New People, Try New Things

I’ve started a number of projects this year.

The 365 Self-Portrait Series: The challenge is to take a different self portrait each day for an entire year. I’ve attempted this a number of times in the past, but every time something came up to interrupt the flow – my camera broken or stolen or a hard-drive crash that locked up all my pictures. According to Flickr, the most I’ve ever managed is 181 photos. Last year I was too depressed to even begin, but this attempt is already unlike the others. Something inside me snapped this spring and hasn’t mended. All that’s left is the determination to make this year different.

My Facebook Friends Portraits: This is the year I expect to have 1000 facebook friends. To celebrate the milestone, I am going to take a portrait photo of every single one. When I am done, I will have a small gallery show. Given that many of my friends are scattered across the globe, I may have to actually apply for arts funding for this one, but for now I’m going to do as many as I can where I am. The website for the project is still in the planning stages, but I’ve already started taking the pictures.

Six-String Samurai: I haven’t picked up a guitar with an intent to play it since my father smashed mine when I was little. Time to move on. To that end, I’ve been given an acoustic guitar by my family, jointly somehow by my mother and brother Kevin, that used to belong to Brenda, and my friend Ray has returned my family’s guitar book, Rock School, that my mother bought through mail order when I was two. I have cut the nails on my left hand short and practicing chords every day until my fingertips go numb. There is an end goal, a VideoSong, but more information on that will come later, once I am farther along the way.

Sell My Stuff: I started this last year to some success, but the pace isn’t moving fast enough. To this end, I’m putting aside a day every week to catalogue what’s left and re-list anything that hasn’t sold. I will also be reviving the minimalfox blog to keep track of my progress. Most of my sentiment’s been excised, so the new rules for the majority of what remains shall be that of good design – if it’s not unique, rare or hard to find, it had better be useful as well as beautiful.

this is the sea, for him to have a challenge, I must accept one

cultch_webflyer

Larry, my friend who’s master of Sinister Bedfellows and the Sharing Is For Communists t-shirt, is caught in a bit of a financially worrying situation. As a result, he’s put our book on sale.

(I’d very much like to see a printed version of this eventually. I’m told it’s popular in American libraries, but I’ve only a PDF copy, myself.)

My story was about Shane Koyzan, (teaser: here), who is conveniently performing at the Cultch this Tuesday with all the lovely people mentioned in the flyer stage right. I’m told that I’m to be the official photographer for the evening, which is a task I’m beginning to look on with mounting panic. For one, the plate to my tripod’s gone missing. For another, as my mending is at two months behind, I’m going to have to very hurriedly find some theatre blacks with appropriate pockets. (This is where, simultaneously, one of you feels guilty and someone else laughs). Oh, watch me begin to scurry. while. stuck. at. work. Head, this is the desk.

how to properly put on a kimono.

The feet on the floor above me sound like an amplified heartbeat taken from a terrible new age TV show, as if they’re pushing blood through the building by the mystical power of dance. Heads thrown back, arms out, legs crashing in slow motion, blue waving graphics meant to symbolize something drastically spiritual and unlikely to be true. Either that or they sound like feet and I really should have slept more last night than I did. It’s a fifty/fifty bet.

Part of my mock-panic worry are the miniature New York Times Bestseller hallucinations floating around in the penumbra of most of my sensory input today. I’m not so far gone that I’m seriously considering joining the Project 365 Photo-a-Day, but I am beginning to sift through my pictures, trying to pick what to give to A View In Your Mirror. The idea is to create a collection of self-portraits from people all over the world, artists or no, in the medium they prefer. I fall into the categories presented, I like what they’ve chosen to show so far, but most importantly, (not to mention unexpectedly), I can’t think of any reason not to.