Project Progress

PROJECT PROGRESS: To date, I have collected three gallons of pennies! Will tally them soon. Check here for Project Progress throughout the year.





Saturday, May 14, 2011

One Thing I've learned...

As I've said in earlier posts, I'm learning a lot about myself as I pursue this project. The most recent revelation: I'm a lousy blogger! "They" say that to have a "successful" blog, one should post daily. I can't do that for a variety of reasons. First of all, I don't have that much new to say... Unless I get comments from the public to respond to, there are only so many times I can describe the project and my vision for it.There are only so many times I can talk about the difficulty I have asking people for pennies, the gratitude I feel when people participate. Since the idea is to wait till the collection process is over at the end of 2011 before making any decision about the piece to be created and to give people a chance to add their suggestions, I can't really post about the idea for the piece taking shape. Second of all, I follow several blogs belonging to friends of mine and I have to admit that after the first couple of posts, I feel more obligated than excited to read them. I don't want to inundate people with new posts, new facebook updates about new posts, emails about new posts. I think it's a turn off sometimes and a display of self-promotion that I'm not all that comfortable with. Third of all, I don't really know what constitutes a successful blog in my case. I do know that popularity is not necessarily an indicator. I care more about participation. According to my stats, people are reading this. According to my ever more full penny jars, people want to see the project completed and want to be part of it, at least in terms of providing the pennies (materials) for the artwork. So I continue to blog when the spirit moves me and hope that is ok with all of you.

I do have a few items to report. My studio mate, Elise, is an art teacher. Her students just sent me over 800 pennies that they collected. I am very grateful to them and look forward to hearing from them on this blog. I'm sure they'll have something to say about how I use the pennies. Also, I spoke yesterday withe the director of the Shemer Art Center and Museum in Phoenix. I am hoping to meet with her again to discuss the possibility of Shemer being the recipient of the charitable component of this project. I want to explore the possibilities of donating the piece to their sculpture garden, or auctioning it for their benefit at some sort of event to be held there. I think this fulfills my wish that the project benefit the community and especially the arts in the community. I will keep you all posted of any progress in that area. I've also fleshed out a little more of my vision of the piece. I'll keep this to myself for now since I won't necessarily be making my vision of the piece. There is still plenty of time for members of the community to add their ideas and I'm not making any decisions yet. But if I don't get the input and have to rely on my own ideas, I want to have something in mind. Of course, as is the norm with my art, the final product may not even resemble what I have in my mind when I begin. That's the fun part of the creative process... seeing ideas come to life and then take on a life of their own that could be very different from what was first imagined. I love seeing art develop into what it was meant to be and knowing how small a role the artist sometimes plays in that process!