Blank Slate

I've been waiting for inspiration, and I fear I may have found it! "Fear," yes... It will mean a lot of work if I follow through. I hope I can!

A few years ago this brilliant gentleman committed himself to this brilliant idea which he so effectively popularized that it lead to the creation of this community.

For those not inclined to follow links- Scores of people have been taking photos of themselves every day for a year. Their perspectives are, literally and figuratively, a little wider than my first introduction to a 365 day visual project, which was this woman's time lapse of her own face over the course of three years (I just found one video I saw only once in 2006... MARVEL AT MY GOOGLE FU!)

I should also mention another project I first discovered in 2006- Playwright Suzin-Lori Parks' 365 Days/ 365 Plays project. Of course, she used her own language to write her short plays. I am not nearly so ambitious.

So just what AM I doing? I'll be drawing a sketch, every day for a year, and writing something about it. If there are other lex loci that I decide upon, I will let you know.

This sketch is a still life based in real life. I thought it appropriate to start with a blank slate, especially since I happen to own one that means a lot to me. It's in the style of an old-fashioned school child's slate (although whether it's a real antique or a real old fake antique I can't be sure.) It might have once been bound better, but now it's essentially two robe-bordered planks embedded with chalkboards and tied together with two pieces of string. One slate has a single long crack.

This object now sits on my nightstand (also pictured) but it once belonged to my grandmother (who bought it at a yard sale) and it sat on her kitchen table. When I lived with my grandparents I kept a very different schedule then they did, so they would leave me notes about where they were, what I should clean, and where I could find food. It would have been easy enough to distinguish between the handwriting of two people, but my Grampie, an engineer, made it especially simple by ALWAYS WRITING IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

This sketch took me longer to upload than to draw. Perhaps this project will finally teach me to use my scanner.