Creativebug The first time I did a 100 Day Project, I found it to be utterly life-changing. I know this sounds hyperbolic and over-dramatic but there’s just no other way to put it. I had previously spent a ridiculous amount of money getting an MFA degree and that didn’t teach me nearly as much about being an artist as the 100 Day Project, so when I say life-changing, I mean it: I started the project one person, and I ended it an entirely different one.
The 100 Day Project is a free, global, instagram-based project currently. It’s currently lead by Lindsay Jean Thomson and formerly lead by Elle Luna, based off of the classroom work of artist and Yale professor Michael Bierut. The premise is basic: pick one action to repeat every day for 100 days and document it.
My first project was ambitious – a zine a day. You can still find them all looking at the #100daysofzines tag on instagram. And by the end of the project, my work had been seen – and I had made new friends – all around the world. I had traded zines with a cartoonist in Scotland, I was invited to have a show in Portland, my zines appeared in the Bombay zine fest in India and a few more in San Francisco, Brooklyn, Texas, and others.
When Creativebug announced they were planning to have a co-working group of committed artists, I demanded to be a part of it the way I had once argued with a NYC bouncer that I NEEDED to be in a certain club. There were nearly 80 attendees made of Creativebug members and staff alike, and about half that number showed up for our weekly gatherings.
We met for 16 weeks total and our guest ranged from Creativebug staffers to Creativebug artists (including Cal Patch, e bond, Charlotte Hamilton, Heidi Parkes), and some of my best artsy friends (Lauren Barnett, Shae Freeman, Kate aka East Bay Kate). A particular favorite guest of mine was my mom, the brilliant, beautiful, thoughtful Dawn Hale. We’re still discussing some of the topics that came up in our session and it was an honor to get to share her with the squad.
The work made by the participants was diverse and thrilling. People made collage, sketched, painted, carved stamps, quilted, took photos, even composed music. What struck me most wasn’t any particular project, though there were plenty of memorable ones. It was the accumulation of small acts of attention. Week after week, people showed up with unfinished work, creative doubts, busy schedules, family obligations, technical problems, and all the other realities of being a human who wants to make art. And yet, they still showed up.
Over the course of the project, I watched participants abandon ideas that weren’t working, discover new materials, stumble into entirely new bodies of work, and develop creative habits that felt sustainable rather than heroic. The magic of the 100 Day Project has never really been about completing 100 things. It’s about learning what happens when you return to the same practice again and again, long enough to get past both the excitement of beginning and the temptation to quit.
Leading this group reminded me over and over again why I fell in love with the project in the first place. Making art can feel so solitary, but I’m forever fascinated by how creativity can really flourish with community support. Every week we got to witness each other’s experiments, celebrate each other’s progress, and offer encouragement when momentum started to fade. The work was funny and interesting and cool, but I suspect the magic that happens when a group collectively commits and the creative confidence that emerged will be the greater lasting achievement.
To everyone who joined us: thank you for showing up, for sharing your work, for taking creative risks, and for proving to ourselves and each other that a meaningful artistic practice is built one day at a time. I can’t wait to see what grows from the seeds we planted alongside one another.
I had started my first 100 Day Project thinking I was making zines. What I was actually building was a creative life. This year’s group reminded me that the things we commit to at the beginning are only rarely the thing we receive at the end.