March 6th, 2011

I’m sitting at a local coffee shop in Fullerton called McClain’s and thinking about what to write for my final thoughts.

The first question that pops to mind is “What did you learn from this experience?”.  That’s a good question.  It’s a tough question because there are many answers to it.  The best answer is I learned a lot.  I learned about different techniques of art, I learned about illusions, I gained respect for other artists.  I learned about time management, I learned about myself, I gained confidence.  I learned that no man should need to do one creative thing a day (but I don’t regret it).  There were days where I felt completely rundown by the blog.  Many times over the year I would refer to it as, “my stupid creative thing”.  It became a job and like any job, no matter how perfect it might seem, there are days you just don’t want to do it.

The way I felt about it went in waves.  When I look at my “THE YEAR SO FAR” link on the site I can even see the waves from a sort of birds-eye view.  When things were good, they were good for days in a row and when they were bad they seemed to go for longer.  The ups were usually a complete surprise to me, like “The Fruitiest William Tell” or “Light Cables”, which oddly enough, happened only a couple days apart.  There’s “The Swayze Beat” or “Room Tone Rhythm”.  They all spawned from a simple and small concept but the results were surprisingly satisfying.  The downs were the days I just wanted to get it over with, “my stupid creative thing”.  They were usually a tutorial of some sort, or a modular patch or a quick drawing here and there, “The Fall-back”.  The music box tunes became a fallback-type project for me but I always seemed to feel better for doing them.

I must admit I put a lot of pressure on myself.  I tried hard to keep it random.  I think a little of it comes from a small dose of showmanship that has always been in my blood.  The moment I realized that there was an actual audience out there looking in on my blog I wanted to, for lack of a better phrase, keep it entertaining.  The only way I knew how was to keep it random.  My usual analogy is nobody wants to see me practice guitar every day.  So, this added a level of pressure and weight.  It also made certain long term projects very hard to do.  I was okay with that though because there was something exciting to me and almost easier about doing something random each day.

As I reread the paragraph above I feel like I’m only thinking about one half of the project.  As I got closer to the end I got more impatient.  It’s called “senior-itis”, when your close to graduating high school and you start cutting classes and you start caring less about the grades.  The same sort of thing happened to me in the last days of the blog.  When I started the blog I posted every single day, then I started posting them the afternoon the day after.   Eventually I was  holding onto two or three days and posting them in clusters.  By the end of it, I was posting full weeks at once because it was so hard for me to drum up the energy to organize the photos and write something.

The other frustrating factor was that I really wanted to work on long term stuff at my own pace.  Instead, I was forced to do something small.  You can’t get to the bottom of something in a day.  You can only touch the surface of things.  I did continue to delve into many things that genuinely interested me like slit-scan, animation and artistic techniques but it still felt like I was only skimming the surface.  Now that the blog is over I am going to relish in the steady pace of things.  I plan to study processing and arduino much more.  I want to practice rhythm on the monome.  I want to make more films but I want to spend a lot of time in preproduction.  I am so looking forward to this next year.

I feel like I’m making it this experience out to be a downer.  It’s most definitely was not.  It was one of the most productive, eye-opening years of my life.  I can remember the year and see my daughter change in such a unique way.  I have been completely changed by the whole event.  I believe I can do just about anything I put my mind to.  I have learned a ton about myself and what I like and what I don’t.  I’ve discovered a new love in paper-cutting and collage.  I’ve learned that creativity is all about seeing what someone else has done and taking it somewhere yourself.  I’ve tried to always share where my ideas come from and the internet has been a great source of inspiration.  There are so many talented people out there and they are all available at your fingertips.

I wish I could sum it up.  It was an experience.  A great learning experience.  A satisfying experience.  I want to thank you for reading.  Without you, whoever you are, I might’ve given up a long time ago.  Knowing that someone is listening is part of the experience and without all your wonderful comments of encouragement I would’ve really had troubles keeping it up.  So thank you so much for your eyes and ears and your wonderful words.

I should talk about the future a bit because I will continue to work on things and I appreciate the connection to all of you.  At times I reference to it as the ending of “the blog” when I should say rather “the project”.  The blog will remain on the internet and the 365 day project will always be archived here (as long as I can pay for the hosting service that is).

I will continue to blog but it will most likely be about more varied things.  I might see another artist that inspires me and I might blog about that.  I may simply have an idea I’d like to share.  I will still blog about my personal projects but it may be more few and far between.  I will always try to keep the theme of the blog as something I hope inspires people.  It will be like, “Look at this amazing thing I saw today!” or “Check out this ingenious idea somebody thought of?” or perhaps sometimes even “You know what I really hate?”  I hope that you all will continue to read and comment your opinions.

I want to warn you as well that there is the hope that I can turn this blog into something that can possibly make me some kind of extra income.  This brings up the topic of advertising placed somewhere on the page.  I, personally, can’t imagine ads complementing the aesthetic of my blog but it is one of the best ways to receive income from doing a blog.  I am just toying with the idea in my head but I would make sure that whatever ads are placed are in line with the kind of content I post about.  I hope they will be ads to companies like Adafruit, Grand-Illusions and others who are providing the tools for creating and inspiring.  I hope that I can find a clean way of implementing it into the blog.  I hope that the prospect of ads does not turn you away.  But, like anything, we will see how it goes.

It has been a wonderful experience.  I want to extend my support out to the others out there doing their own 365 day project.  If you decide to take one on I will post a link to it on my “links” page.  Please check in on uprlip.com and comment on his site as well.  He is doing some amazing things over there and I’m sure he’d love to know people are listening just like me.

In the end, I hope this blog doesn’t end but continues in some other form.  It won’t be a sudden transition but a gradual one as I find my new foothold in the world of blogging.

It’s kind of amazing to me that I am here now writing these words.  That the project is actually over.  I will see what it’s like to go back to normal life.  I’d gotten into the rhythm of doing these creative things that it will be something new to drive home without the goal.  I’ll be sure to blog about that it as it occurs to me.  I have liked the reflective quality of blogging.  The freedom of expressions and the forum to express it.  There is a sadness to seeing it end.  But there is also the undeniable realization that I need the release.  I started the blog to re-invigorate my creative self and it certainly did that.  Now, I need it to end in order to truly fly.  I hope that I can still offer you something worthwhile as the blog continues to change.

Anyways, I guess it’s time.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for checking in on me and offering your support.

Now, go do something creative and blog about it!

All the best,

Charlie Visnic