Trying My H(art)est: An experiment

By: Bella del Aguila

At the beginning of this assignment, way back when we were still in physical school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I couldn’t think of an area of my mind that was open for improvement. I can rarely answer personal questions like that because it just makes me blank out. 

For example, when I had to fill out all the request forms for teacher recommendation letters, there were a few questions about what I believe to be my best qualities. How do you even answer that? 

I don’t enjoy judging myself on things like that because I never want to appear narcissistic or, contrarily, insecure. I feel like I completely lose my sense of self when I get asked those types of questions, but I’m not sure why. It’s just a thing that happens.

Upon starting this project, I also didn’t feel that I could consistently reach for a certain goal without falling behind or getting bored. I looked for suggestions online and came up with nothing, so I was about to give up and just go with something simple, like reading every day. 

I’m okay with reading, so it couldn’t be that difficult to do something like that. But I needed to do something that I was more passionate about, something that I was more excited to accomplish, rather than just a pastime for some academic credit.


Then, it hit me: I should create a new piece of art every day.

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To make a long story short, no I should not.
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I tried going with the “one new piece a day” routine, but it drained me of all creativity and motivation by the time a single week had passed. The issue here was that I had already started for the whole week, so it wasn’t like I could change my project topic at that point. So, in order to keep the motivation flowing but also not overwhelm myself with work, I had to come up with a new plan.

I decided to just write down any ideas that popped into my head at any given time, and then bring the concepts to life at my own pace. This is the new system that has helped me in getting back into my own art, and it’s keeping me active in the creative process. Things had been getting frustrating before, but I’m finally producing good work again so I’d say it was a functional idea. 
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