Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Some Ideas

So, driving home last night I did a lot of thinking about this and a year or 3 ago, I had a similiar idea and was trying to remember the details of my idea. Here's my concept. We all say we're going to do things that we want to do.... but at least I personally feel like we either aren't motivated or don't prioritize doing that thing.... there are other things that come up and we push it to the back of the line. But if you have to do something for someone else, it seems to get done because it's not for yourself.

After thinking of the logisitics of all this, I think it might be hard to have enough time, or space, or whatever... to produce stuff during our meeting.... but it should rather provide the motivation to make stuff throughout the entire month. So the meeting would be more of a show of what we've produced.... and then a critique by everyone in the group. Plus if some of us are interested in the 'how' of what someone is doing, we'll have time to share tips about different materials... equipment.. software.. etc. I would say the most important thing is knowing that you have to show up with something in hand to show for the month and being ready to have that piece critiqued on it's own.. free of excuses why it may or may not be your best work.... it has to be your best work.

So basically the meetup provides the motivation to make stuff. It provides a forum to bounce ideas off your peers and get your work critiqued so that you can improve your work.

Finally, I think that when given this blank canvas, most of us spend a year trying to figure out what the perfect thing to do is... I know I've done it myself many times where I spend lots of time figuring out what it is I'm going to do and planning it out and then I end up doing nothing. So my final proposal is this. That we each bring 2 concepts with us to each meeting, we put them in a hat and then pull 2 out..... and our work for that month incorporates those 2 concepts. So say I pull out "snow" and "farting".... well, I'll be trying to shoot a photo of a snowman farting, or doing a sketch of that, or making a webcomic about that (Paul). I think this is kind of important and the thing that gets me most excited about doing this.... because you know as soon as you get those pieces of paper, you'll have ideas flowing and I think it's the limitations of those concepts that will really help us to move forward and just start creating right away without wasting a lot of time on ideas.

The other thing I think that will happen is you'll get these limitations and all of a sudden have ideas that you really want to do that don't incorporate them.. which is really what this is all about... getting the juices flowing and inspiring you do more work for yourself.

7 comments:

  1. Sounds good to me. I need any kind of push.

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  2. While I find the prospect of producing actual results in front of all of you pretty daunting, I too could use some motivation. I'll be honest. I think you're all very creative and talented people, much more so than myself. So part of my desire here is to feed off of all of you and learn as much as I can.

    I like the idea of pulling concepts out of a hat and running with it in some way. I feel like I go blank every time I sit down with someone to get creative. Gino and I have met for many drawing sessions over the years and I almost always draw my biggest blanks when he and I sit down at a table with a cup of coffee. Being provided with some ideas will at the very least, provide a nice warm up for the brain.

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  3. My first read through your post mixed up the coffee comment with the brain comment and I came away with "a nice warm cup of brain"

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  4. Here's something that might be a useful tool for coming up with ideas.
    http://www.tdbspecialprojects.com/

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  5. I'll check that site out Dan (even though I'm disappointed that "tbdspecial..." doesn't stand for "The Dan Bowe Special..."

    I'm both excited at the ideas of pulling concepts to run with (reminds me of something we'd have done in illustration courses in courses) and horrified at the thought of pulling the paper that says "farting." Such a thing should be written down a very short straw.

    Ideally this all works better if everyone gets together in a real sense, but since we have this blog set up and we all have the ability to update it, there's always the possibility of uploading your project as a blog post and all of us critiquing it remotely in the comments should someone not be able to make it.

    Apparently, I must have pulled "run-on sentence" in the last draw.

    Just out of curiosity, is everyone in Milford except me?

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  6. Well Paul and I are, Bill is in Norwalk, DJ is in Oxford.... Dan - you in Milford still? Just an aside... I was referring to my house when I said at my place.... we don't really rule to roost here anymore at the office in norwalk so I'd probably opt to not do it there.

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  7. I am still living in Milford, but I work in Ridgefield. That's why I had mentioned Norwalk, it's about halfway between the 2.

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