52 things

This year, a challenge I have set myself is to produce a "thing" every week.

The commissions I take on typically last 2-3 months or longer, which means personal projects become secondary, with only occasional time to work on them. As a result, smaller projects can sometimes take a year to finish—a situation I find frustrating. It's human nature that new things excite us more than old ones. Fresh ideas appeal more than those we've lived with for a while. This effect intensifies when we've been stuck on a project without visible progress, making the original idea feel stale. Instead of tackling roadblocks by thinking through solutions or investing in new tools and equipment, we often drift toward thinking about new projects.

Consequently, my workshop is filled with stalled projects, and my shelves overflow with ideas—some are simple prototypes for potential projects, others are half-finished works set aside.

So my challenge this year, and the framework for achieving it, is to produce a "thing" per week. Here, "produce" can mean either finishing an existing project or creating something new from scratch. While some projects will take longer than a week—like the furniture pieces I've already spent several weeks on—the goal is better described as “finishing” one thing every week. Some weeks will yield small items, others larger ones; some will be part of a coherent collection, others will be standalone pieces for myself.

I am already planning some tiny things that will help get me through busier weeks, but my ambition is to clear my shelves and clear my brain… let’s see how we go.