I started a new 100 Day Project a few days ago because my first of the year — 100 Days of Self Portraits — stopped, unresolved. I long for a daily project: something to do every day without having to decide what to do every day.
So, 100 days of flea market finds.
I love flea market treasure. I love searching and finding and investigating the treasures when I get home. I love keeping some things and transforming others. I love the time on them. The wear, the marks of making and use. The colours and the little histories they carry.
I said it was unthinking, but that isn’t what I meant.
I need a path. A place to wander. A place to get lost for five minutes or an hour.
I am surrounded by flea market finds, so gathering 100 will be easy. I will have to think. To contemplate shape and colour and composition, and as I draw, thoughts will arise. I love this process. It is meditative.
I produced a lot of good drawings and thoughts with my first project. Though more bad drawings. I liked the challenge and risk of it, but it didn’t feel like a 100 Day Project.
So now I have this, in the midst of a storm.
Really, so much is happening — least of all, transitioning from summer to fall.
WEEK ONE:
Day 1: Antique Hand-Carved Bone Dice from the 1700 or 1800s.
I like an unthinking 100 Day Project. One where the ritual encourages the daily doing because you don’t get hung up on the what.
My 100 Days of Self-Portraits tormented me.
Day 2: Antique Stencil Brushes
Sometimes I try too hard.
Day 3: 1930’s Aspirin Tin, made in Virginia
There is no lack of things to do. I added this to my days because it doesn’t take forever, and it keeps me making marks. Sometimes that’s all I need. Just a thing telling me what to do. To keep on.
Day 4: Plastic Sheffield Milk Bottle Charm from the World’s Fair 1939-1940 (found in a tin)
Sheffield Milk Charm from the 1939/1940 World’s Fair, the internet tells me. I didn’t research any more because it doesn’t really interest me.
What interested me most was the little rattle in a tin — that moment before discovery, when the mind illuminates the potential.
Day 5: Wooden Rulers — I’ve never seen such a skinny one!
I expect no masterpieces, but the repetition will have gifted me something. What, I won’t know until I put my time in.
Day 6: The Cursed Emerald Green
EmErald Green (Paris Green) made with the ever-delightful Arsenic and Copper
Ugh. Another. I don’t love this direction I am going. And shouldn’t have used a waxy, waxy crayon for the colour, as I couldn’t layer colours. But that’s not the real problem.
Day 7: Some Flea Market People harvest inventory from their gardens.
'Tis a good morning. I woke up after having slept.
I wish to move across the page in a trusting, unthinking way. This is why I love 100-day projects. I trust that I will get there if I find the right path.
PS: Using Stoneground Paints for all of these pages
Some past right paths:
Plants (pre-Substack, a few times)
Smudge: Non-Dominant Hand Pages
Shimmera: A Poem a Day
Shimmera: A Poem a Day (again)
Little Windows: Tetra Pak Prints
A not-right path, but path nonetheless:
Self-portraits — Week 1 (2026)
Self-portraits: We Find Ourselves Only By Looking Back
How I am keeping track of this project — not by date yet, though I may add — just a simple numbering on the opposing page!
These are so cool! And I was immediately reminded of Odes to Common Things by Pablo Neruda...truth be told, though, I like yours a little better.
Love your work.
Now this I like! Was thinking how can I do this? Remembered I have a cigar box of treasures my dad had saved and gave to me one day. We went through the box and he described each item. My great grandmother's pince-nez glasses. I also have a picture of her wearing them. A silver dollar. Cufflinks. A lapel pin. A token for a streetcar found under a kitchen cabinet. I'm no artist, but I could try.