I bought this book, 52 projects, by Jeffery Yamaguchi, over the weekend and absolutely love it. It's poignant, honest, inspiring, and Jeffery is a great writer. It's not too sweet or self-helpy, just funny and real. This is the kind of book that is hard to write about because it's more like an event than a book. Or a way to look at life a bit differently. It's big (like big ideas, big) and it's one of those books where, even if you read just a few pages, you will remember what you read for a long time. It's all about projects. Creative projects like:
#19 write down the story of the best night of your life.
#27 take a picture of a kid you know, make a postcard out of it, and mail it to to the kid.
#41 create something during the time you are doing your laundry.
#22 write in the margins of your books.
Really great ideas, thoughts, and writings, just on how to live a creative life though these various projects. Also, I think it's really touched upon something very personal for me right now (especially with the holidays approaching- making gifts and selling gifts) which the notion that so much of what defines successful craft and art is the sale of it. Like if I sell a bunch of paintings, I am a good painter. Or if I sell a ton of quilts, or notecards, whatever. It's hard not to feel like the selling is the measure of the talent and of the success (or perceived success) of an artist. Also, in a practical sense, people who produce a lot of stuff (me) need to get it off our hands, so we can make room to create more stuff, but again, then there is usually an implied value to all this stuff even if it's traded or bartered. . .not just creating for the creating. Or creating just for the documenting of life-which is so important to being a participant in life, to me anyway.
Which is why I love this book and the website so much, it's about art in such a pure form to me. Not that other ways are unpure by any means, (or that it's a bad thing to make a buck from your crafts/art, which it most definitely is not, and I am continually grateful I can make a buck from mine) but when you create something you can't sell, or never intend to sell, it takes on a whole new artistic identity-and it's a different experience producing it. At least it is for me.
And I love the idea of collecting data, of any kind, and putting it into some kind of format, and then seeing the result. Organizationally, I find it very pleasing, and many of these projects involve this type of activity.
There is a wonderful interview with Jeffery Yamaguchi on this great site crafty pod. It's a podcast. I have read a lot about this book, and I think this interview is my favorite, and really sums up the ideas about it the best. Plus, I love listening to things. It's hard to stay focused long enough to read in depth on the computer with the babies crawling up my leg.
so, yes, another early gift for myself, but this is a really good one!
