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Caught up on making post cards for the 25 days I missed!

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I realized I needed to spend a bit less time on the FADs so working a little a day thus ended up taking the rest of the rest of the month 🤷🏻‍♂️

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For the third or maybe fourth year in a row, one of my projects was to post my favorite piece from someone else's Fun-A-Day project on Instagram. There were some really cool ones this year, although it feels like fewer than usual. (I have no hard data on this.) If you can get on there check out @funadayforever. I will continue to post there for a few more days!

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I still need to bind off and weave in the ends, but here it is, essentially done (modeled by the Lovely Caroline).

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I finished my project a little early. I made a movie showing its evolution from brown ukulele to piece of art! It is accompanied by beautiful uke music played by Jake Shimabukuro. Enjoy!

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Getting the strings on. Almost done!

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I took a few days off after a couple of unsuccessful days where I did not have fun doing this and I won’t post those collages because they’re yuck to look at but it was a good learning experience for me. What I’ve determined is that my idea of fun does not include doing the same thing for 31 days in a row. It just isn’t. Maybe my 2022 project focus around doing something different each day. At any rate, here’s my latest that I actually did find fun.

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Running with Molly on a beautiful 26 degree day, during the pandemic 

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Running with Molly on a beautiful 26 degree day, during the pandemic 

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Landscape

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One more. 😘

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Posting a couple recents. Enjoy.

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Day 15

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How's it going out there?!?
I'm still having fun- are you?

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1/15

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Today we attempted to destroy conventional beauty standards by flushing one of it's oppressive tools, the hairbrush

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1/14

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Commission #3 from 2 year old of her "buddies"

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Here’s day 8!
@helenwilla

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MAGA storms the capitol

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Even though I’m actually posting on Day 7...
Here is Jan. 1 - Jan. 5.
Color/temperature is measured in quarter-day averages, and pattern/cloud cover is for the whole day (so that the pattern is large enough to be recognizable).

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Working out

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My project has been utterly delightful so far, but the doodles I make whilst talking to my friends are not really for public consumption.
I assure you all it's fun and I'm really glad I chose this project! I'm also engaged in the 3rd annual iteration of another Fun-A-Day, @funadayforever, over on Instagram, where I post my favorite piece every day from projects around the world! (By around the world meaning just the US and Scotland, for some reason.) So far I've featured art from Pittsburgh, Philly, Dundee (Scotland), and of course the Hudson Valley.  Check it out if you're ever over there. And if you post anywhere else don't forget our hashtag, #funadayhv2021

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Conversation with body

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January 6

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Elemental

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Lightning Oak

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Day 5 Blind Contour

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Busy snow

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some paint collaboration with 2 1/2 year old Kitty

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Conglomerate rock

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Khati Ann's arm is finally fixed after Dr. Hooey set it and put it in a sling.

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Kitty wanted drawings of her 1970's Adventure People plastic toys, so I did my best to comply.

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Sent to Kyle, a friend I have not seen in a while.
No photo today because I will wake the puppy if I get up.

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Creature-a-day: the pot that won’t be thrown. (Inspired by a bad day of angry clay at the wheel).

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I didn;t have an image from today's prompt that was compelling, so this is an image from a previous prompt. About dying sheets with the red North Carolina clay so we could use them as curtains.

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Offspring

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Arby Lips

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Not very tasty.

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beauty is in the eye of the beholder

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In which Dio takes an interest in Smartie eating and Smartie won’t have it.

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today's prompt

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Sent to Joy Taylor, an inspiring local artist who is always cheering others on to make work.

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Ash is doing destroy-a-day. Today he destroyed the laundry piles. Yesterday he destroyed the seed catalog. It's a commentary on destruction as an act of creation. The negation of a thing is the creation of entropy.

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4/31

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I’ve been working on this every day

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I made a snap pouch today!

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(Image descriptions are up on Instagram but if anyone needs them here lmk!)

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For funaday this year I'm picking up a past project. I started this two years ago for funaday but I broke my ankle Jan 11th and the whole month got a little derailed.  The project is to embroider 30 plants around the bottom of a sweater. The plants are all things that grow in our HV climate and have edible/medicinal uses.  I picked back up with a fiddlehead fern and hops vine.  Fiddleheads can be prepared similar to asparagus, but beware of overforaging! Hops flowers are one of my favorite medicinals, bitter, aromatic, crinkly, they make a lightly sedative tea that goes great with lemon and honey and will knock out most trouble sleepers

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Photograph of temporary tiny installation inside Projector box, using letters from about 50 years ago written by high school classmates, who appeared in my writing prompt today.

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Artifact (3)

What do you see?

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Wherein Smartie objects to being stopped from eating a jalapeño pierogi

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To Alicia who got married this year.

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Wherein Dionysus explains his technique into looking like he’s asleep while being awake

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Responding to writing prompts with images

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Responding to writing prompts with images

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I've very recently started writing something every day in response to a writing prompt (silly prompts, interesting prompts, curious ones...  and I use a timer and just write for about 10 minutes and don't know what will emerge)  So now I am adding another short step which is to make an image that relates in some way to the prompt: a drawing, a sketch, a little painting, a collage, maybe even a short video or a photo.   (But I'm not going to post the writings, just the images).

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Artifact (2): Hand to Hand (contents displayed)

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Artifact (2): Hand to Hand (open)

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Artifact (2): Hand to Hand (closed)

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Artifact (1): The Back Story

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I also made a highlight on my Instagram @helenwilla to keep them all in one place there.

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Sometimes a step. Sometimes a slide. Sometimes true.
Sometimes belied.
A collection of short trips and a few falls along the way.

Artifact (1) : Stories of Awakening

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Wherein Dionysus gets a piece of pasta out of the sink

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Temperature ranges calculated. And I have decided on four stitch patterns to represent sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, and rainy/snowy. Now to cast-on and knit up “yesterday”.

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will be reading this book daily and journaling the insights along my path of discovery

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Sent to Anne in Boston

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I’ll be making a daily tape collage on vintage Manila stock for FAD2021. Check out daily posts on my Instagram @helenwilla. Here is my first entry. Enjoy!

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I am going to send a post card each day to someone.    The postcards will have collages I have made over the years on them.

Day 1.   Send to college roommate I reconnected to this summer.

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I have eight colors of yarn that will represent different temperature ranges.  The actual temperatures for each day will determine which color yarn will be used for the next section of the scarf. I am also thinking of playing around with using different patterns to represent sunny/cloudy/rainy/snowy/etc. Here is a photo of the yarns arranged from coolest to warmest.

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The gardening motto in this house is, "Why not?" and sometimes, "What would happen if...?"

So this January, I'll plant a seed-a-day. The goal is to plant 31 unique seed types and to include comments about how they do. I'll include some blurry photos as well.

Note: a lot of the seeds I plant are from foods I bought at the store, or grew in the garden. I often have extra so let me know if you want some!

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I love to play the ukulele, but the Uke pictured here is not a quality music maker. So for my project I intend to “play” with it by decorating it! Paint, collage, decoupage!

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2020 has been a year of pets for many people.  My kids and I got two kittens back in June.  Every day we muse about what an important source of joy and amusement they have been (including our 15 year old grumpy grandpa cat.)  We have a habit of making particular voices for each cat and speaking for them.  So my fun a day this year will be recording voice memo diaries for one or more of the cats each day.  Will collab with my kids (10 and 20 years old) as they are willing.

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All year I've been preparing for my fun a day! I've been taking photos of my dog doing "Winnie Yoga", when she's resting she makes the funniest poses.  So I'm going to make a photo album with the photos and all the names.  Hard copy and viritual to share with all of you.  Fun a day is our annual family tradition and we love it!

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This year I'm focusing on reaching out to the friends and family that I miss so much.

I have always hated talking on the phone. It's something I've studiously avoided. (I don't know why!) My partner Mike and I often cite the invention of text messaging as a reason we got together. I love texting. I would do everything via text if it was possible. You can plan what you say and have a record of it, and we can read and respond at our convenience. What's not to love?

So, I have slowly come to consider it rude to call people on the phone. An imposition on their time.

Then came the pandemic.

And now we have the indignity that is Zoom and her horrible ilk.

So now a phone call seems like a beautiful, quaint, old-fashioned method of speaking. I suddenly WANT to talk to people on the phone for the first time in my almost-43 years.

So that's my project. Every day, I will call a friend or relation on the phone. We will chat while I doodle. I have a few standard questions I will ask everyone. Maybe we'll draw together. I am starved for connection and am so excited to talk to people!