100 Day Challenge

For the past few years, I’ve committed to the 100 Day Project—a self-imposed creative constraint challenge that prioritizes showing up over making it perfect. When COVID-19 hit, that practice became harder and like many my attention span shorter. The pressure to be productive clashed with a very real need for comfort, levity, and joy. I turned my subject matter into one of my favorite topics: dogs.

Enter Groot, a three-year-old English Bulldog rescue. He is lazy in a way that feels philosophical. He produces more bodily noises (and smells) that defy what’s possible. He has exactly one facial expression and that is of total indifference. He is, without question, the best worst dog I’ve ever had and the subject matter for that year’s challenge.

This challenge isn’t about polish, perfection or output. It was about permission—to explore, to respond, to make without overthinking. Some days it made sense. Some days it didn’t. None of that mattered. What mattered was the act of making. Which is what I did. Every day I would make something using the same subject matter, the dog that represented a visual documentation of the moments my family was experiencing. And it took real collaboration to recreate these moments. Working with an animal, to findings props and making backgrounds, From masks to missed events, boredom and laughter, and for months little moments of our lives reflected in that day’s topic. Some days it could be trying to get the dog to look like he is playing scrabble ( it sort of worked) to

making e animating gifs. Illustrations, videos, infographics, it almost seemed endless what you could do. And mostly, what it did was take us out of the moment and bring us all together in a better one. Where creativity and family and friends from near and far would reach out every day to let me know how much joy they would get seeing what he was up to as his journey was all of ours.

In a moment when the world felt heavy, the simple act of making something every day—something that made me (and others) smile—was enough.

Thesis