What

Project 25:365 is a network of artists from various disciplines embracing art as a way of being rather than a product-and-reward-driven endeavor by practicing daily artistic engagement throughout 2025. Starting on January first, artists will create a type of artwork of their choice every day for 365 days. The hub of the project — including descriptions of artists, their projects, and links to their work— is hosted on this page. I will maintain a blog about the project as a whole that also includes my own work for the project and posts from other creators. I am directing this project in partnership with the Otherworldly Arts Collective and ALTR Gallery in Northeast Minneapolis, Minnesota. If you want to know more about me, please see the About page.

Why

Art in all of its forms is how human beings tell ourselves the story of our reality. Daily practices shape who we are, who we believe we can be, and what that means in relation to our stories. By engaging with art as a daily practice, we can embrace our agency in making our realities. By centering the deeply human practice of creating music, prose, paintings, or any other art, we can reclaim art as part of ourselves, rather than a product to be bartered for acceptance or admiration. While there may be a place for determining which art is bad and which is good, this is not that place.

For more information on the theories and philosophies informing this project, including the writings of Kant, Heidegger, Bandura, Foucault, and Kierkegaard, please see this page.

Who

Anyone. Really. Yes, that includes you.

People tend to have ingrained flinch responses to both pillars of this project: Calling themselves an artist and doing something every day.

Let’s address the first one first. The label (like all labels) exists only to serve the very narrow purpose of classification. You don’t have to hang your reality on the hook of this label. Call yourself what you will: A maker, a being, a creator, a dreamer, whatever. Call yourself nothing. The label “artist” is a narrative device in the stories we tell ourselves, nothing more. If it doesn’t serve you, let it go.

The second one second. There are a lot of things you do every day. I, for example, brush my teeth twice per day. Sometimes, I brush them as long as it takes for my smart toothbrush to make a smiley-face at me, which is the two minutes you’re supposed to spend brushing your teeth. Sometimes, I brush them so fast the devil toothbrush actually frowns at me in disapproval. If you are a human and are alive right now, you spend at least 30 minutes (but in actuality an average of 6 hours) every day staring at your little, medium, or big screens for entertainment and work. If you approach this project the way I approach brushing my teeth (sometimes you give it your all, sometimes you give all you can stand) and take a tiny sliver out of your other activities, you can find two minutes every day to bang on a drum, write a pun, or take a picture of a dog.

How

The first thing you have to do is decide what you want to work on for 25:365. It doesn’t have to be baroque; it can be as simple as you like. After you’ve thought for a bit and determined you want to, for example, paint a portrait of one worm per day for the entire year, you can take the following steps:

1. Decide how you’d like to host your work. While this page is a hub, you will be responsible for housing all of your work over the year. There are a number of free and simple options for hosting images, music, and video. If you need guidance on how to set up one of these accounts, please see this page.

2. Fill out the form to join the Project, available here. I will use one of the images from your listed website or social media for the project hub. If you have a specific image you would like me to use for the hub, or you have a question that you would like answered before submitting, please see the Contact page.

To stay connected to the project, we will have four meetings throughout the year at ALTR Gallery. The first meeting will be on December 15, 2024 at 5pm. During these meetings we’ll discuss our own work, how we can serve the arts community throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul, and how we would like to showcase the work from Project 25:365 in 2026, proving that we all believe we can survive the coming year. I hope we see you there!

Participation in this project does not require perfection. If you start late, that’s okay! If you miss a few days, that’s also okay! The hub will be organized initially by order of contact, after that, categories will be created to denote who is an ongoing participant, who started but retired, etc.

If you have any questions, you can take a look at the FAQ. If none of your questions are addressed there, please feel free to email me directly. I would like you to know I specialize in existentialism and phenomenology, so if your question is about how you can feel better about the world, don’t ask it; my answer will just make you cry.