The Case For A Daily Creative Challenge
We often think we must completely change our lives in order to live creatively—quit our job, move across the country, or lock ourselves in a studio. But sometimes it’s good to remember that we tend to overestimate what can be done in a day and underestimate what can be done in a year (as the saying goes). Here’s one woman’s story about finding creative fulfillment amongst everyday routine.
The wild theasel that started it all, as seen on StillBlog.net
The Catalyst
In the early 2010’s, Mary Jo, a retired aerospace engineer, saw a quote on Pinterest: “The Secret: Do good work and put it where people can see it.”
She had been creative her whole life, but so far, that creativity had been confined to journals and hard drives. “You know, it’s such a simple slogan, but it hit me,” she explained to an audience at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
The Challenge
She decided to get her work out there, but with a busy household full of kids, she knew the project would have to fit in with the life she already had. “Whatever I came up with had to fit in around the edges of daily life,” she said.
Mary Jo was intrigued by the popular practice of a daily creative challenge, doing one creative thing (e.g. one drawing) everyday. She already took her dog on regular walks where she collected bits and pieces of nature that interested her.
“Whatever I came up with had to fit in around the edges of daily life”
The First Shot
Then one day, on one such walk on vacation southern France, she collected a wild teasel. She put the theasel on her journal for background and snapped a photo. She was pleased with the result.
“‘I can do this,’ I said to myself. Suddenly a creative practice, and a step toward joining the online creative community I had admired for years, both seemed possible,” she wrote on her blog.
“Really that puggle is the whole reason for all of this. Because he needs a daily walk.”
Photo from StillBlog.net
The Routine
Not long after, StillBlog.net was born. Now, for over half a decade, Mary Jo posts a photo a day. In the morning she walks the dog and gathers her subject. In the afternoon, she’ll take a break of anywhere from five to 50 minutes to snap a picture, and right before bed, she posts it. “So it fits. It didn’t disrupt the family rhythm at all. In fact, it quickly became part of our family routine…that everybody participated in,” she said at the institute.
After doing it “every single day, quietly on the internet for two years” she had a significant body of work that surprised even herself. After two years, she had a significant body of work that even surprised herself. Since then, she’s caught the attention of everyone from Target to the Scottish National Opera, not to mention Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, who crafted the short biopic below. Enjoy!
From Hello Sunshine.
