First a bit of housekeeping:

In 52 Weeks…

• 35 pieces of music
• 6 paintings/sketches
• 5 scripts
• 4 short films
• 1 animated .gif
• 1 sculpture

Also one other little detail… I announced that I was going to take part in the RPM Challenge back in the beginning of February. Alas that was not to be. I actually did create enough rough music to technically complete the challenge if you include raw ideas and such, but I decided not mail anything into them. Maybe next time!

So what to make of this little experiment in 52 Things? Pretty much everything I said at the halfway point still holds true. I guess I’ll conclude with a couple of final observations:

• It’s about the process, not the result. I’ll quote here a comment I made on my friend Dav’s blog, who’s also begun his own “52 Things”:

“For me, I have to keep reminding myself that doing anything creative at all is a victory in itself. Sometimes that thing you might think is lame is the seed of something larger. Other times it’s just lame, but it’s necessary lameness. It’s like you’re getting the creative dreck out of your system in order to make way for better ideas. Congratulate yourself for doing something (anything) in the face of (possibly) feeling like just saying “I’ll just skip it this week… it won’t matter”.” 2/11/08

• 52 weeks are going to go by no matter what. The question to ask is “What are you going to do with that time?” I look back and go “Damn, look at all this stuff I’ve made. Whether anyone else likes it or cares about it or notices it doesn’t matter. I’ve made stuff.” That feels pretty good.

What’s in store for the future? I’m not certain yet. I’ve loved the process and definitely think I’ll begin another similar challenge at some point. One thing I would like to do is thank all of you who have been so supportive through the last 52 weeks! (You know who you are! : ) Also if you’ve read this far I’d like to point you in the direction of a couple other creative folks who’ve started their own 52 Things… One is my friend Dav over at AkuAku who I mentioned earlier. The other is someone (whom I’ve never met) who left a very gracious comment recently… Go check out Siobhan over at Sew-n-So’s to see some very cool creations. To both of you I say please keep doing what you’re doing! It’s been incredibly inspiring to see the things you’ve made and I look forward to seeing what else you come up with. (I’ve totally been subscribed to your RSS feeds so don’t think no one is watching! ; )

If you’d like to say hello or ask me any questions about anything you’ve seen on the site, feel free to email me at thomas {@} 52things.org.

For now…

ts – 3/16/08

For a higher resolution copy click here.

medium: Watercolor & Photoshop

I see this dovetailing well with 52 Things. It provides another deadline and will force me to write more frequently. I’ve been very pleased with the progression of the music I’ve created here, but think it’s time to take it to another level.