Around this time last year, I wrote about a whole pile of projects I was hoping to dive head-long into during 2021. I was excited and hopeful and raring to go, ready to knock out all sorts of daily and weekly projects, and hoping to learn a bit more along the way. I wanted to play with color. I wanted to take a deep dive into film. I wanted to continue my daily shooting practice. I wanted to push myself to find and really develop a style that was mine, truly mine.

And I did a lot of it. For a while. I painted my watercolors, one color a day, into the month of June. I shot daily for about the same amount of time. I managed a whole 21 weeks in a row of a roll of film a week (this one got pricey and tedious, and I ended up mixing in some instax to break things up a bit).

And then, in early summer, I was just done with it all. I stopped all of these projects. Maybe I was burnt out on them. Maybe I was starting to look for something in me that these weren’t filling. I don’t know entirely, but I knew I needed to stop. So, I did. Cold turkey, all projects ceased. And, you know what? It’s been okay. I’ve picked various pieces of these things up again in the fall and early winter, but not every day, and not all of the things. It’s been good.

So, now I’m facing down the coming new year. I have historically loved that clean slate – that chance to start something new, to dive down a new path, to explore some un-looked-at-facet of creativity. And this time around, I have no solid plans. I do know that I have a fairly summer-shaped hole in the documenting of my family that does make me a bit sad, so if anything gets picked back up, I think it’ll be that 365 practice.

It does feel a bit odd to be on the complete opposite end of the whole “new year, new projects” spectrum this time around. I’d love to hear about you! Are there projects you are looking forward to? Any you’re avoiding or that you picked up, dropped off? Let’s swap stories 🙂

All the best,
Alison