All 61 index cards, pinned and clipped to the incredibly purple wall next to the art table in the workroom.
Last year — the first time I did ICAD — I was acutely aware of the need to build the habit of doing a card every day through June and July. I was glad to have Tammy’s lists of prompts and themes as anchors — ideas that I could count on to help me come up with something when my own thoughts couldn’t pin anything down.
This year was different. I knew I could do it; I realized that there was nothing in the challenge that required my daily output to mean anything to anyone but myself. The cards didn’t have to be gorgeous or skillful — they didn’t even have to be good. I used this year’s ICAD as a chance to try new things, to have a new look at old things, sometimes to simply play.
I rarely used the daily prompts; if I liked a theme I went with it for as long as it appealed to me. I played with paints and textures, colors and line. I snipped words and images from magazines and books. I made marks with pens and whatever else seemed like it could, well, make the sort of marks I wanted to make. I sometimes worked in silence, but more often than not at least semi-aware of the TV on somewhere nearby — in fact, the last couple of weeks I’ve been consciously working interesting bits of dialogue into text.
I’ve learned a bit more about letting go, and I’ve become a little better at recognizing what’s important to me. And I know that creating — making — every day is at the very center of that.
