[Starting the “100 Days of Reading and 100 Doodles” challenge_by ART NYC]
This article is being published to share with many people the precious experiences and values created by ART NYC and artists. Under ART NYC's slogan, "Support artists who want to grow and help them continue to grow," we are pleased to produce the result of the artist's excellent completion of the "100 Days of Reading and 100 Scrawls" challenge. The first person to complete "100 Days of Reading and 100 Scrawls" brilliantly, we would like to serialize how the artist's challenge progressed and developed through this magazine.
ART NYC is an art company based in New York. The organization has three parts: Team ART NYC, Gallery ART NYC, and CONTENTS ART NYC.
First, Team ART NYC is an organization that supports and grows artists. It runs an artist residency program that stimulates and develops each other with constant feedback. To become an artist or employee of ART NYC, they must challenge and succeed in the reading challenge for the first four months. This period is called the training period. They must read 100 books in 100 days and email their reading notes daily at a fixed time. If the challenger is an artist, they must submit one drawing or graffiti together daily. This is not an easy challenge; they must do it independently of completing tasks assigned during work hours or working on a piece for an exhibition. However, during the success of this challenge, we get to know each other. They learn how well you keep your promises, how they can solve problems in time, how patient you are, and how much they have grown since your 100th day. If you succeed in this challenge, the company will help refine their submissions to publish online publications. This concludes one challenge and gives they the first step in their new journey. Failure to do so does not mean wasting money or time for each other. A training artist or employee would have grown themselves up through reading, even if they failed at this challenge. Companies need to know something more important than a resume or external conditions before engaging with a person. That's the nature of an individual. This reading challenge training can reduce risks because they have a little understanding of the nature and disposition of the individual and then plan what they do together. ART NYC residency differs from other residency programs because it is a long-term project focused on artist growth for over ten years.
Gallery ART NYC is the essence of ART NYC. There are so many galleries and art fairs all over the world. In recent years, despite the economic crisis, the art market has expanded in more and more ways. Moreover, how the exhibition is presented is transformed into more diverse ways. However, the essence of the artist's concept and work of originality, which should be submitted to the public through good planning and exhibition, remains unchanged. ART NYC organizes exhibitions to best show the world that the artist wants to express. And it aims for a gallery faithful to its essential role of informing more people. When the space cannot contain the artist's work, we try to find an external space or a new way to show the work. There are no physical limitations to the exhibition.
Contents ART NYC is a team that plans to promote companies and writers and works through various content. One is writing through online platforms such as Brunch and Medium, operating YouTube channels, operating metaverse galleries, and producing art products. ART NYC uses two channels on YouTube: ART NYC and Art & Money. This channel shows various exhibitions held worldwide and conveys multiple things happening in the art market. The messages from subscribers are an essential indicator of the art market, and they are growing together by influencing each other through feedback. The method of information delivery content we produce aims to expand and permeate rather than stimulate gradually. On the other hand, content centered on artists is created with process-oriented content that shows the tension and experimentation of the artist's process of trying and accomplishing new challenges. Artist-oriented content is currently being produced and is waiting to meet with you soon.
As such, ART NYC consists of three prominent organizations. This organization is the best for completing the four-edged vision puzzle, created to set and shape goals when ART NYC was founded. The four corners of the vision puzzle consist of communication, collaboration, growing artists, and a reasonable budget. This four-edged square is the goal of ART NYC. After We created the puzzle with this square and ran it to scatter, We started filling it out at the edge of the frame. And We are still working on it.
We will give you a piece of this puzzle, a 100-day miracle. Why don't we try the author's "100 Days of Reading and 100 Doodles" challenge?
[Starting the “100 Days of Reading and 100 Doodles” challenge_by DanJi]
I am an artist who lives in Sydney. I was born in a small island village in Busan and came here. When I first came to Australia, I couldn't forget the hot sunshine and the smell of coffee. I fell in love with the Sydney-style coffee scent and have established myself as a barista with five years of experience. Since I run a florist next to the cafe simultaneously, I could wake up at five every day and see the flowers in full bloom, just a 30-minute walk from home. I smelled coffee and flowers all day, and when work was finished at 2 p.m., I walked home along the river in the warm sunlight on the top of my head. The 30-minute scenery was always beautiful and exciting. And when I came home, I painted in the evening. I couldn't sleep at night when I drank a lot of coffee, so I stayed up all night in front of my desk. In Sydney, I went to the sea in summer and spent many not-so-cold winters.
Then, one day, like any other day with overflowing Sydney's solar energy and warm sunlight, this thought suddenly crossed my mind. 'It's meaningless.' 'What am I doing here now?' I am an artist. Nevertheless, I started to become disillusioned with the slowness of my work under the pretext of living. I decided to quit the barista because I wanted to work only. After reading a book, I visited the exhibition hall, but finding the right place was difficult. I couldn't get a call from where I wanted. Even though the excuse was gone, working typically was slow, and I had difficulty acting. I wasn't sad or upset. I just decided to expand the world and find a place to welcome me.
Meanwhile, I had an opportunity to contact ART NYC. I was delighted to have been in touch with an agency in New York and talked a lot over the phone and e-mail with the company. After going through numerous processes, I got to work with them. Last winter, I visited New York and performed a registration program. However, they told me that there is one task that I must achieve before I officially work. It was to complete 100 drawings and 100 book reports in 100 days. I had no idea until now that the official artist contract could be achieved only after passing this mission. The saying, 'However, even the temporary contract will be terminated if it is delayed by even a day,' just came to my mind. In addition, I am not a student, and I can't believe I have to do a book report…'
But I can do it. I hit a snag right after I started the mission with my determination. Despite my different mindset, reading a book still took me a while. No, it took me a long time. I spent a whole day reading a book, tying up my notes, and putting them on one page. I couldn't do anything else because I was fighting the mission all day. The desire to do well made me spend more time. My anxiety grew as I had never proceeded with the work for the solo exhibition in two months. In addition, there were variables in my personal life. My husband's job forced me to move my house urgently to another area, and after I moved, I caught the terrible flu. I didn't think I could make it. Reading the book to the end of the page in one day was too much and impossible for me. The same was true of drawing. I had to rack my brain to draw, but I drew a humble picture compared to that pain. The book report alone was too much, but I had to draw up to 100 drawings. My body and mind were already tired, and I didn't want to do anything. I felt like I was going to explode trying to find and list the reasons why I couldn't do it even though my body couldn't move, and I had to do it in my head. I was also angry. Why on earth would the company bother me? Why did I want too much from myself……
I was eroded by my 'original self' at the age of twenty-four, saying that it was not the right time and reasonable to postpone it. I could be free with just one e-mail to the company saying, 'I won't do it.' I thought I had decided, but I still had fifty things in my head. There's no way I don't know that it's a fight with myself rather than the company. 'Can I do it?' The conflict in my mind made me unable even to sleep.
I have given up in the past. For example, unlike last year, I remember the 'sadness' of finding empty chapters around September, three months after buying a diary, excited to have a fruitful New Year. If I give up again this time, my body will be comfortable, but my mind will be more uncomfortable. In addition, the most significant desire was not to feel sorry for myself anymore. After hours, I jumped out of my seat. I noticed that lying down was meaningless when my head was so complicated. I wanted to be confident for a reason.
So I concluded, 'Let's do it for now.' It's only a drawing a day, but I was burdened with the number 100. It would have been convenient if I had drawn a picture that came to mind after reading the book, but it was a problem that I thought of separately. Reading the book also has a key to convey in the table of contents and the book's introduction, so I decided to read the part. It's not perfect, but I tried to shorten the time for now. Even if I tried to do the trick, I couldn't. The focus was on 'doing it first,' not perfecting. Perhaps, even though it couldn't feel enough satisfaction alone, it self-rationalized as if it had a trick. The process is revealed, so you can know it by reading this book.
Seventy days have passed. Fortunately, the project was still in progress. As I read different books every day, I became aware of the diversity of styles, and among them, I came to understand what style of writing I felt was easy to read. While reading several books in one field, I also learned that there was an ordinary book that writers referred to. I noticed that the book I usually chose was a self-development book. I think it's because I had to control my emotions and actions. When I found myself focusing on reading how to manage anxiety until the end through Dale Carnegie's Theory of Self-Management, I felt a strange feeling. Indeed, some were easier to read than history books or science books. However, that day differed from when I got the hang of it.
The book consoled me. I was fascinated by his solitary life and the expressive power of writing after reading Perunan Du Pessoa. Every sentence in Pesoa's book [Book of Anxiety] appealed to me.
"The conditions of reality always constrain my life. If I try to solve some of the constraints that bind me, new constraints of the same kind will bind me tightly before I know it. I struggle to remove the grip of someone who strangles me from the scruff of my neck as if some ghost has a grudge against me and takes over everything. But my hand, which had just taken someone else's hand off my neck, hung a rope around my neck at the same time as that liberation gesture. I carefully peel off the rope. And my hand clasps tightly around my neck and strangles me." (20.71 pages)
I may have been finding a rope and tightening it around my neck. I empathized with this lonely writer, and they projected me. 'Sneeze.' I felt like something had been broken in my heart, like the glass had cracked. The minor wounds I exchanged in my childhood, which were trapped or hidden in me, have not yet been healed. Today came to me with tears of uncontrollable pain, not knowing that the days of my yesterday, when I did not touch the wounds of that time on the pretext of busy reality, have accumulated.
"Through art, we have the illusion of being freed from the pain of existence. As long as we feel the pain and shame of Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, we do not feel our pain and shame. It is repulsive because it is our own and even more awful because it is offensive.
Ownership is loss. What you feel without owning it is kept inside. It is because you understand the essence of things." (270.631 pages)
"Are you fighting a winning fight every day?"
[Daily Philosophy] It is a Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hansleman book. Yesterday, I was anxious and precarious, not knowing what I was fighting for. Today, I feel refreshed at least knowing the object. It became clear as if a gray cloud had lifted over the blue sky, telling us what to do today, what to do tomorrow, and why. Today will soon pass and become yesterday. The past is only the past. I have passed as I exchanged my childhood wounds and created 100 books and drawings. I thought that life was more than a choice. No matter your choice, isn't life to dream of a better future by adding experience and knowledge? If you do it more day by day, wouldn't there be days when the angle is slightly twisted and multiplied? I plan for tomorrow and today; I will fight fiercely with myself and overcome it. I will add on.