The end of the 100 day project!

The 100 Day Project is officially over, and I am very glad I did it. I am also very glad it is done.

Both of those things are true.

When I started, I knew I wanted a structure that would get me back into a more regular rhythm with my own work in a practical sense of having something to return to each day. A reason to sit down and make something before the day completely filled itself with teaching, errands, email, laundry, dishes, and all the other things that somehow multiply when you are not looking.

What I did not fully know at the beginning was how much the project would become a record of attention. Looking back at the pieces now, I can see the days when I had more energy, the days when I was squeezing the work in at the edge of the evening, the days when an idea had room to develop, and the days when showing up was really the whole point. Some pieces feel resolved. Some feel like notes. Some feel like they want to become something else later. A few are probably done being anything, and that is fine too.

That may be one of the more useful parts of a project like this. It gives the work permission to be uneven. When you are making something every day, you cannot treat every piece like it has to carry the full weight of your practice. Some days are better than others because people are better on some days than others. The work reflects that. I do not think that is a failure of the project. I think that might be the project.

There were moments when I got bored with the format, and there were moments when the repetition helped. I started to notice which decisions I kept making, which shapes and colors kept showing back up, and which habits were useful versus which ones were just familiar. That kind of noticing matters. It is easy to think you know what you are doing in the studio because you have been doing it for a long time, but a daily project has a way of showing you what you actually reach for when you stop overthinking.

I also learned that I am itching to work larger again. The smaller format was helpful because it made the project possible (financially and storage/spatially speaking), but by the end I could feel myself wanting more room….mostly because I LOVE working at very large scale (5”x5” was a challenge in and of itself). I missed the physicality of a larger surface. I missed having space for decisions to unfold instead of needing to resolve so quickly. I missed the part of painting where the whole body gets involved, where the work is not only happening in the hand and wrist but in the reach, the distance, the standing back, the moving around.

So now I am in that slightly awkward after place, where the project is finished but the next thing has not completely introduced itself yet. I have been cleaning the studio, sorting through materials, taking photos, and trying to make enough space to see what is actually there. This part always looks less exciting from the outside, but it is part of the work. Clearing the table, finding the scraps, photographing pieces, making piles, throwing things away, keeping things for reasons I cannot fully explain yet. It is all part of getting ready.

I have also been thinking about working outside for part of the summer, maybe even building some kind of table or workbench so I can paint in a way that feels a little less contained. I am still pondering that, which usually means I am mentally building three versions of it before committing to one. There is something about this next season that feels like it wants more air around it. More scale, more mess, more room to spread out.

The 100 Day Project did not answer every question I had about my work, but it did remind me that returning to the work is usually less dramatic than we make it. You sit down, make a thing, come back the next day, and eventually there is a trail behind you. Some of it is useful right away. Some of it only makes sense later. Some of it becomes evidence that you were still paying attention, even on the days when it did not feel like much was happening.

I think that is what I am taking from it now. The project is over, but the trail is there. I can see what I kept circling, what I avoided, what still feels alive, and what I am ready to leave behind. That feels like enough information to begin the next thing.