Welcome to Claire and Talisa Need a Summer Project! I bet you're wondering what this is all about. Well, here's the story.
The other weekend, Talisa and I were having pretty much one of the best Saturdays ever. Invigorated after a particularly satisfying brunch, we spent an hour or so perusing our friendly neighborhood bookstore. The two of us came across a book, Learning to Love You More, which, when glossed over, seemed just like a normal art book with cool photos in it. Talisa and I both have a slight obsession with adorning our rooms with ripped-out images from magazines and books (I believe it was Talisa who originated this idea and I blatantly copied her...imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?), so we decided we would buy the book, excited for our soon-to-be-beautifully-decorated walls. As we began to flip through it and actually read some of the text, though, we realized the book was more than just a series of images, that there was a cohesiveness behind it all. The images and text were all stunning; some of them moved us to tears.
Learning to Love You More, we discovered, was actually collection of assignments. "Sometimes it is a relief to be told what to do," says Miranda July in the introduction. "Our most joyful and even profound experiences often come when we are following other people's instructions." She and Harrell Fletcher consequently came up with a website (the link is on the right!) in which they would post assignments and criteria, and people would accept the assignments and post their results. The book we bought is simply a sampling of the 5000+ entries they've received since 2002.
So! Talisa and I obviously thought this was beyond awesome and have decided to jointly accept the LTLYM mission -- we will complete as many of the tasks as we can and post our results here. Each post (whether individual or joint) will list the task we have accepted, the criteria for the task, the results, and perhaps some extra goodies. We want to share this with as many people as we can -- so PLEASE feel free to comment with your thoughts, encouragement, or even your own results!
We hope you all have as much fun with this as we already are. Enjoy!
Love in every color,
Claire and Talisa
"When we are making crepes from a recipe, attempting to do a handstand in yoga class, or singing someone else's song -- sometimes it seems like the moment we let go of trying to be original, we actually feel something new."
--Miranda July
