TASK
(social distancing version 2020)
While we are away from school, my students and I will be making art in a variety of ways.  We’ll also be trying to bring joy to our lives. To that end, here are a set of tasks that are meant to inspire creativity, play, and inquiry. 

Collaborate, explore, keep going. Do at least one a week and post it on our shared class blog, upreptask.blogspot.com.  (Email me so you can get an invitation to be an author on the blog.)  Post your documentation along with the text of the prompt.  Feel free to add other text.

This work is inspired by artists like Oliver Herring, Miranda July, Harrell Fletcher, Alberto Aguilar, Yoko Ono, Allan Kaprow, and, the granddaddy of them all, Marcel Duchamp.  Art can be fun, absurd, humorous, provocative, and different.  Contemporary artists explore these things. So be contemporary!  ​
  1. Think of something that you’re really good at that you can do right now. Go do it and document it however you see fit.
  2. Go take a walk outside and take 100 pictures. Delete the worst 98 of them. Post the 2 best.
  3. Sew something.
  4. Find 5 really, really strange things in your home. Take really, really close up pictures of them. Post, save, share them.
  5. Take a flash photo under your bed. (Thanks Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher)
  6. Cover an entire sheet of paper with tape (or various tapes).
  7. Try to make a beautiful photograph by dropping food coloring into water.
  8. Find an artwork you did as a kid. Now try to make an updated version.
  9. Go find someone in your house and discuss what makes each of you really, really happy. Document the conversation somehow.
  10. Create a sculptural “monument” to something. Use found objects or things that don’t quite make sense as your medium.
  11. Go outside and sing loudly for at least one minute. Make sure you video it.
  12. Go have lunch with Mo Willems.​
  13. Find a random photo on your computer, phone or device. Post it on the blog with a descriptive haiku-style poem.
  14. Take a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture..... how many levels can you get? Post the photo. Have a contest to see who can get the most levels
  15. Go find someone with whom you DON'T need to social distance. Share a hug for at least 10 seconds. But go for 20.
  16. Think of a song that you can’t stand. Print out the lyrics. Paint over all the worst words, leaving only the ones you like.
  17. Find some Legos in the house and make something RIDICULOUS. Take 2 photos and post them.
  18. Make a really, really, really bad piece of art. But spend at least 30 minutes making it.
  19. Find something that no one in your house wants anymore. Take it apart. Take 5 photos and post them.
  20. Re-create the snapshot featured at the top of this page.
  21. Take the most interesting photo you possibly can of a bowl of cereal.
  22. Pick three foods that have nothing to do with each other. Arrange them in an interesting way. Photograph them in an interesting way (think cropping and lighting).
  23. Use 100 straight lines to draw a design on your canvas. Add color to “taste”
  24. Record 10 different sounds around your house. If you can, edit them together.
  25. Think of an object that you really don’t like. Imagine a “home” for the object and create an image of the scene.
  26. Find a white piece of paper (or some other white thing you don’t mind drawing on permanently) and a Sharpie. Go all Shantell Martin on it.
  27. Make an intentional still life from your kitchen, give it dramatic lighting, look at it while you play your favorite song five times. Here is mine from my kitchen.
  28. Make a list of the ways you say “I love you” to the people in your life with out really saying it - how you say “I love you” with actions or other words. Then, add your answers to this form https://forms.gle/RgNdM52DW7myWoKs8 if you’d like to help out a classmate!
  29. Take candid photos of your family or pets. Find the best three, and text them to your most distant relative
  30. Do a full makeover for someone in your home.
  31. Make a fort out of the stuff in your room and light it in the most inventive way you can. Take 3 photos and post them.
  32. Find someone in your home and make a piece of art with them.
  33. Photograph a favorite or significant full outfit of clothing. Then photograph your LEAST favorite article of clothing.
  34. Find a Scrabble™ board and write a poem with as many letters as possible.
  35. Create a domestic monument by stacking things in a room of your home. (Thanks, Alberto Aguilar)
  36. Go for a walk and photograph as many abandoned gloves as you find.
  37. Do a painting, drawing, or other artwork, based on a YouTube tutorial or a Bob Ross episode.
  38. Artificially stage a photograph such that it looks natural, even though it isn’t.
  39. Throw a temper tantrum for a FULL MINUTE. Then take a selfie.
  40. Make a Sol LeWitt inspired drawing, based on these instructions.
  41. Make a two twig sculpture from whatever you have.
  42. find some Legos and jump on them
  43. Record a conversation with a friend where you only say one syllable words to each other
  44. Clean out a drawer, box, closet, etc, and make a sculpture of the items you would have otherwise thrown out
  45. Go find someone with whom you DON'T need to social distance. Share a hug for at least 10 seconds. But go for 20.
  46. Do a full on photoshoot with your pet
  47. Take a walk in your neighborhood (or in your house, if you prefer) and take at least 3 pictures of things you see representing each color of the rainbow. Then stitch them together in an app like Photo Collage,
  48. This huge list from Jonathan Dueck, the Canadian:  Huge Awesome List
  49. You'll find the complete, ongoing list right HERE.