consistency

i think one of my biggest strengths is consistency. i know who i am (or at least i say so) and (for the most part) that permeates everything i do. but consistency is also one of my biggest weaknesses. it keeps me from admitting that when it really comes down to it, i have no idea who i am. that i am still a work in progress. it keeps me from doing things that would be out of character. or getting a hair cut. the scary thing is, though, once you commit to consistency, growth is stopped at the door.

when i first learned about on kawara's date paintings, it was exactly the kind of ambitious consistency that gets me excited. he has been making them since the 1960's, paiting on the canvas the date on which the painting was made according to the country he's in at the time. as far as i know, he's still going. byron kim has a similar idea, by supposedly painting the sky every sunday since 2001. but listening to byron kim lecture last year, i loved the break in that consistency when he admitted that sometimes he doesn't get around to painting until thursday or sometimes he just skips a week altogether. life is not predictable. so consistency will always be a lark.

still, i admire the people who can commit to running a mile every morning or who attempt to take a self portrait every day. these sort of undertakings usually surface with the start of a new year. and, more often than not, the act looses steam and just peters out. (like when i decided i would check out a book a week way back when.)

i'm going to start something for this year: one sentence. i found myself coming up with sentences that were at once complete (in their conception) and incomplete (in that they could lead to so much more.) i started a word document for them because i didn't know where else they might have a home. they were just sentences that i didn't feel needed justification. no supporting paragraph or photo. which is exactly the consistency i have cornered myself into with this blog. and that's ok. it works. but whenever i post something here i know there is something that is not being said. something that i am keeping to myself. putting just one sentence up gives me the chance to be a little less polished and a little more honest with a medium that, at least in my opinion, calls for surface level and impersonal. and i'll try to put a new sentence up every day. maybe it will help me feel less guilty when a week goes by where i have nothing to say on this blog. (and i know i've already missed four days... oh, well.)

hello, consistency. meet something that scares me a bit.