Who we are and what we do

So far the productivity pact has brought us this far: we have met each other and shared our goals. For blog posterity, here they are again:

• Jesse's Productivity Pact '07

1. Get home movies from both sides of the family transfered to MiniDV. Find a place that transfers film. Transfer videos from VHS. Start logging the footage. Figure out what if anything to do with it. Other than being amazed by my parents stylish hair in the late eighties.

2. Write a video game with Joe Holt's help.

• Cyle

1. fill one sketch book (or the rest of one and get well into another). I want to start next term with a few potential projects instead of wasting time in the beginning figuring out what I'm
actually going to do. I'm thinking of the sketchbook as something like an idea bank that I can put all of the passing project ideas that I usually don't have the time for when I think of them. Even if I lose interest in some of them, at least they'll still sort of exist.

2. research picture frame project. there are details to come on this one, but I want to do a project using picture frames, and it would help the idea if I spent some time thinking about different elements of it and researching the history of others to find out where exactly
I want to go with the idea. I never feel like I do enough research, or never have enough time to do it as thoroughly as I'd like. I also want to actually mess around with the items themselves a lot, because even if I feel like I don't get enough research done, I feel like a lot of the time I over conceptualize the idea without considering the material early enough in it's development.

3. keep going with the personal history project I started in the fall. not sure exactly where the project is going, but I started putting things together and I want to see it through.

• Lauren

My main goal is to do a lot of crafting in the next 6 weeks. I am not choosing the "what" at this point, but I'll be knitting, sewing, making jewelry, and whatever else I think of. I'm not forcing myself to be specific at this point so that I can go with whatever inspires me on a particular day. I also want to open an etsy store (etsy is sort of like ebay for handmade things) and experiment with selling some of the things I make. I don't like workin for the man anymore than the next lady, but I do like making things. I hope that one day I can at least partially support myself through art or crafts or whatever, so it will be good for me to play around with selling stuff and see how it goes.

My immediate goal is to set up a comfortable workspace in my apartment. Right now I don't have anything resembling that, and I know that my environment definitely affects how creative and productive I feel. So by the end of the weekend I will clean up the living room and set up an area that's fun to work in and has all my materials easily accessible.

• Andray

for the month of January im working on two short stories that ill like to make significant progress on. the first, on st. lucian folklore, id like to have a rough, pre-first draft, so that ill have enough momentum to eventually complete it. the second, a personal essay, id like to have a complete arc so that it's at least readable from beginning to end.

• Emily

I think I’ll promise to finish five short things until I love them. They can be descriptions of imaginary diseases or poems or anything else, as long as they’re small. I can make as many as I want and also work on longer stories, but I have to have five small things made of words and love them all by the end of the pact. Five seems like a small number, but it might take me many tries to turn them into things I love.

• Billy

1. Make at least 5 new lamp designs. Produce them all to "completion" even if I realize about halfway through that they won't be any good. Display the good ones in the President's Gallery during early Spring Term. My new design themes are to try and make things more simply/quickly, make things more stable/shippable, and to "love my enemies", in the form of the cords, bulbs, and other stuff that I haven't ever really integrated into a design, just tried to tack on a solution to.

2. Make a "display model" for each of the lamps that people commonly ask for, that I will mark as a display model and not sell, even when it would be really convenient.

3. Take catalog-esque ad photos with human models that can stand up to Real Catalog scrutiny. Like, there won't be stacks of CDs and empty soda cans in the background, unless I place them there for some particular artistic purpose. This will require a lot of fancy footwork and arranging in my apartment. I also want to take some around those fancy leather couches in the New Houses.

4. Get more educated about what I'm doing by reading books/magazines about: small businesses, design, and woodworking. The only thing I'll say specifically on this right now is that I plan to read The Martha Rules by Martha Stewart, because she made herself a fortune, she's gotta have some good advice.

• Jeff(erson)

I'm working on an album and a movie. My goal is to have something boring and something interesting done every Wednesday. Tomorrow for example I hope to have a preliminary budget (boring) and a mask for the killer in the movie (interesting) finished. My focus is currently on the movie side of things, but a minimum of two interesting things are going to be songs for the album.

• Sally

independent study goals

1. continue crawling around grandfather's attic looking for albums, finish scanning all my grandparents' old crumbly photo albums (without damaging them) by next week, categorize and start indentifying the people in the pictures with help from grandfather/mom and make notations

2. start cleaning, cropping, adjusting pictures on aperture

3. start researching questions to ask grandfather for life history interviews (ask mom, aunts, etc.); set dates and times for hour long interview sessions..set aside time to transcribe each interview, prepare and label DV tapes, check audio equipment, etc.

4. start mapping out blueprint for dvd digital archive

non-independent study goals:

1. clean up all audio on most recent video project, fix small glitches, re-do dvd

2. if bored, start transcribing and logging every DV tape i have, because it will help me in the long run but it's a pain in the ass to do

3. design and make new dvds of selected works to give to family/friends

4. watch a lot of good movies via netflix

5. read at least 3 books

6. learn how to cook something nice

7. write letters to friends

• Maia

1. Finish knitting the bottom half (at least) of the sweater I am working on.

2. Make 10 (yes, 10) mix tapes, and send them off to the receiver. The Productivity Pact group I will count as one friend to save me some o' that precious time (if you would like one, please
email your address)

3. Complete a special box of goodies for an old friend. To be included in this box is: 1 mobile, 1 mix tape, 1 pouch to keep mix tape. Pack up in box. Make box pretty. Deliver.

4. Brainstorm, doodle, design 5 new ideas for dioramas to be made next term. These brainstorms must be detailed drawings and descriptions of the suggested projects, as well as a detailed list of needed materials.

• Elizabeth

1. Figure out my new camera including all bells/whistles, buying a battery for the light meter (battery this afternoon).

2. Starting next week, when my film arrives, shoot at least a roll a day.

3. Research color dark rooms in San Francisco and find one I like.

4. Contact the new rolls I've shot or get machine prints by the end of February and maybe start printing.

ALSO,

5. Make a mobile with part of my X-Ray collection.

6. Learn to crochet and make a scarf by the end of February.

• Rachel

1. TO REINVIGORATE THE WEATHER REPORT.

For those who are not already familiar with this endeavor of mine, I started a daily scrapbook last January 24, in which I past/tape/paperclip/write/glue information about what happened to me that day-- recording detritus, basically, like receipts and all that other shit you'd throw away. I've kept it up pretty steadily all year, which is impressive, but I've been feeling lately like I treat it more like a repository than a project, unlike the early days when I used to think about it before falling asleep, and carry around a pencil and post-its in my back pocket to record stuff. It's about time I woke it back up again, and I decided to start by literally buying a new sketchbook with bigger pages. I want to keep evolving it, which means not just settling into a pattern of taping stuff in every 4 or 5 days. Hopefully, if all goes well, I can photograph a couple pages to share with people in a couple weeks.

2. TO WRITE A PROPER ARTIST'S STATEMENT FOR THE WEATHER REPORT

Which I will share as it develops.

3. TO KNIT A PAIR OF SOCKS FOR MY MOM.

I promised her these for her birthday, which was January 4th. I bought the yarn and the needles, my next step is to research a pattern today, and I think I can start knitting by tomorrow.