The answer to the question “what do you do?” is often pretty straightforward: a banker, a teacher, a software developer (we are in Seattle after all). Telling someone you are a banker by no means encompasses all that you are, but it’s enough for the person asking to take their best swing at an engaging conversation. So how do you answer that question when you have multiple passions, like say….fine art photography, a premium Photoshop actions company, a creative inspiration blog, oh yes and you are a designer / branding expert, and now you are participating in NaNoWriMo… there isn’t a pat “I am a…” that encompasses all of that in a bite-sized way.

Tristan’s husband asked her what the heck he should tell people when they ask him what she does, my husband tailors his answer to whoever he is talking to. It’s trickier than it should be. To be honest, I usually go the easy route and say I’m a photographer. Everyone understands what a photographer does, and the conversation can flow smoothly from there. The problem with this answer is that if the person is truly interested and not just making idle chit-chat, the other things we do usually percolate at some point, which causes a bit of halting befuddlement, and can feel awkward.

We know a lot of you also have multiple irons in the fire. Mara is not only a lettering phenom, she’s the CEO of a technology company, our friend Sanae started a blog about choosing a healthier life and learning to sew and ended up writing and illustrating a delightful children’s book, Ez of Creature Comforts has blogger, photographer, and entrepreneur on her resume.

So we are curious, what do you say when asked this question?

RESOURCES

Refuse to Choose!

Famous Polymaths

We mentioned yesterday that we were taking on the challenge of National Novel Writing Month as our personal project, something that we are doing solely for the benefit of us and not for a paying client or an audience. If at the end it becomes something we want to share with the world we would, but for now we are planning to enjoy the process. Michelle and I agree that it’s important to take on personal projects that aren’t paid to allow you the freedom to just create (that’s partly what we do with this here blog), I think this is important in any profession not just the creative arts, everyone needs an outlet to experiment, challenge themselves and grow. I thought I would collect some examples of personal projects here in the hopes that you may get inspired to start your own.  You don’t need to wait to the beginning of the year, or November (like we are), all you need to do is start somewhere and some time (now seems about right). I noticed a trend for individuals to focus their personal projects for humanitarian efforts, for those that feel selfish for taking the time for yourself, this may be a route you may want to consider pursuing. We’d love to hear if you have a personal project you are currently working on or have in the past and if you have any advice on what worked and what didn’t!

//RESOURCES//

Photographer David Du Chemin discusses how he goes about his personal projects

The power of personal projects

Use Kickstarter to fund your personal projects

7 questions to help you find your perfect personal project

Some sample personal projects

This fellow has turned is personal adventure/project into his profession

Getty grants for personal photography projects

Back in June, I was feeling the dangerous and swift undertow of doubt, negativity, comparison and general apathy in my professional life. I was excited about the projects Michelle and I were working on, but my creativity was just not flowing, I felt stagnate and trapped and drowning in a sea of  remorse for time wasted.  I knew I needed to do something but I honestly didn’t know what I needed to do to pull myself out of this creative black hole. I started to worry that I had used up all my creativity for my lifetime and this sallow and drab emptiness where my once creative brain used to be would be my new reality. I had read something about artists trying different disciplines to help them reignite their passion. My work is in visuals and because I have a small babe I didn’t want to buy new supplies or have anything out that would be potentially dangerous. Trust me, I considered painting, sewing, ceramics all sorts of other outlets and then I settled on the most base one, the most simple and direct, one I could do from anyplace, that I wouldn’t need any special equipment for–writing. I had a kernel of an idea, just the tiniest speck, when I went to work I told Michelle about the idea of getting out of a creative rut via doing something different from what we are used to, shared the speck and asked if she would join me, this would help us both be accountable. We took it on as a challenge, to write something, anything, every day with the end goal being November–sign up for National Novel Writing Month. Have we been writing every day since June, um, no. Have we felt more creative because of this little project, oh heck yes!

Friends, November is upon us and we are going to take on the Herculean challenge of trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days. We decided to announce it here to make us more accountable and to see if anyone else was planning to do something as absurd as this. We have been trying for a few days to write as if it was November, the most I have gotten to is 1285 words, but that was better than the 700 I struggled with the day before. The name of the month is a misnomer, ‘novel writing’, because the actual goal is to just get to the 50k word count, what you write may not even make any sense, the idea being to start a daily writing practice. I can tell you having the project to think about has already helped immensely with my creativity, we have had many ideas for photo projects and are even going to try to do a once a month inspiration day where we go out and shoot. For the record, I don’t have much spare time anymore, it seems every hour, minute and second is accounted for, I have been squeezing in my writing before bed, a 30 minute slice a day, it’s not much, but it keeps me writing and not procrastinating, which I am sure I would be doing if I had the luxury of time. Is anyone else doing Nanowrimo this year?  We would love to know! Or if you have prior any advice for the uninitiated?

photo by nini baseema

P.S. This is an image from our Secret pin board, we pinned images that we felt inspired by that held untold stories within each frame, these are our tiny sparks to reference, hoping they will ignite even more stories that need to be told.

I just love the thrill of discovery, why just the other day I discovered that I could pretty much put any sauce in the crock pot with chicken breasts, cook for a couple hours and have a deliciously effortless dinner on the table (I apologize dear Vegans). A revelation to be sure.

Last night I discovered artist Elicia Edijanto, another thrill. There’s so many aspects of her work that appeal to me, where to begin? The absence of color or monotone palette–to not have color in a painting is a bold move, color adds so much to the imagery without it we are left to our own imaginations, it’s such an unusual choice and speaks volumes to the talent of the artist. Animals-I have such a soft spot in my heart for animals, her depiction of these wild beasts with children is a visual fairytale waiting to happen. Edijanto’s watercolor work has an almost photographic quality, which makes it even more mesmerizing to me. I am obsessed with light and shadow and this work has so much of the mystery of both entwined in it, I can’t even begin to fathom how she is able to create such depth and detail with watercolor. I hope if this is your first time discovering Ms. Edijanto’s work that you are equally as impressed!

How about you?  Have you made any new discoveries lately?  We would love to hear them, sometimes it feels as if we are up here talking to ourselves we love it when you join the conversation…

Today when I went to choose a winner for the See San Francisco book by Victoria Smith, I said my daughter’s favorite phrase out loud–uh-oh.  No one had decided to play along to win, which could mean that I A) made the giveaway too hard B) I didn’t inspire you enough last week C) I wrote so much in my post that by the time you got down to the bit about the giveaway your brain had glazed over. D) All of the above.

Thomas Edison was quoted as saying, ‘Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.’  I am not giving up. So, let’s try this again shall we?  I’ll make it easy peasy this time. I, Tristan B. was inspired by Victoria’s book to get out and shoot in my neighborhood and in that little frenzied excitement I decided I wanted to share my inspiration with you and give away a copy of her book. If you my dear friend would like to be inspired as well and try to win a copy of this book (I’ll choose on Saturday, May 2, 2015) then answer this question in the comments:

Is there a book you would recommend that has inspired you to go out and do/make something?

The winner will be chosen randomly, but I do love to read what has inspired you and perhaps I will be even more motivated to go out and shoot/create, who knows? Maybe even motivated enough to brush my hair and put on a t-shirt without food stains on it (I am still playing the new mom card). Good luck!

I used this custom number generator and  No. 14 was chosen which is Claire, congrats!  Thank you to everyone that added their inspiration we want to figure a way to keep this easily accessible as reference as they were all great, really, thank you!