Lessons from 1,000 daily artworks

Recently I hit the 1,000 daily artworks milestone.

Pretty fucking surreal tbh, showing up every single day has transformed my practice and completely changed my approach to the creative process.

I want to share some insights, grab a drink... it's a chunky one 👇

One of the first lessons was the reframing of what's possible to create in a single day. For well over a decade I was under the impression that in order to create meaningful work I needed to put in at least a week's worth of time into each piece.

I quickly realized that it wasn't the case. If I shifted from heavily detailed compositions with dozens of individual elements towards a more minimalistic approach that relayed more on concept, I was still able to create work I was proud of.

The takeaway here was that I was telling myself a story, but when challenged I discovered that I was able to create work that reflected my vision in a single day.

As time went on, I noticed something interesting happening in my mind... because I began creating something new every day, I began to think more about art and to consciously look for inspiration everywhere. My interpretation is that I was gradually conditioning my imagination to become more active, to become more receptive to ideas from everyday life experiences.

I began to feel what a lot of artists refer to as the Muse. I believe there are two ways of looking at the phenomenon; the mystical way is to see it as becoming a receptor of ideas from a higher order of creativity, while the materialist way is to see it as a possible expression of neuroplasticity; repeated creative practice gradually reshaping how the brain generates associations, directs attention, and evaluates ideas.

Either way, the lesson is that the more you expose yourself to the process in a consistent way, the more ideas you can generate.

When I started my digital collage practice in 2009, I was making art for the sake of making art. After a few years I was able to start selling my works, and somewhere in that transition I entered a dynamic of "create to sell"... I was making so many album covers and commercial artworks that I stopped making art for myself. When I began minting my works, I carried this dynamic into web3 and began creating works and series that were destined to be minted and sold. Something tells me that a lot of artists operate like this; create a piece or series, mint it, work on trying to sell it, repeat.

It makes sense, bills need to get paid, we're all trying to make a living out of our practice. But this dynamic comes with a giant setback, which is that creating with the sole expectation of selling influences the work. It can hinder experimentation by making the artist play it safe. It can also put too much pressure on the artist, because the work must sell.

I don't think that is a good place to create from. At least in my case, the ideal mindset to create is a place of curiosity, wonder and pure self-expression.

There is an inherent freedom that comes with a daily practice, the combination of relieved expectations with knowing that there is always a tomorrow to make something different creates the grounds to both explore a motif in-depth through iterations as well as to go on stylistic side quests.

It's through this open-ended process that I established a signature style, and at the same time I was able to discover new aesthetics that resulted in fully-fledged series.

The daily practice allowed me take a chance on questionable ideas. Often times an idea that resulted in a shitty piece lead to the creation of a great piece the day after.

I heard someone once talk about "increasing your luck surface area", that concept stuck with me and made me realize that the daily practice did just that.

By creating something new every day, iterating on motifs, exploring new styles and media, I was increasing discoverability. I can't tell you how many opportunities came from my daily pieces; commissions to create works for published scientific papers on Nature, licensing deals, art residencies, the list goes on...

What this taught me was that sometimes when you do the work that you truly want to do, opportunities that you didn't think of will come to you.

I began the daily practice in January of 2024, since then I've had multiple week-long creative blocks as well as multiple creative streaks. These peaks and valleys of creativity have happened enough times that I've learned to be comfortable with being uninspired, as well as understanding that every good streak comes to an end. In other words, I've stopped identifying myself with the thoughts: "I can't come up with anything worthwhile" or "I'm fucking unstoppable". Creativity is still a mysterious and unpredictable force to me. It doesn't care about how you feel, it either strikes you or it doesn't.

The only thing you can control is showing up, and I do believe that the act of showing up to do the work can influence creativity. I often start a session deeply uninspired, with zero ideas of what to do. But I still sit down and start doing something, it doesn't matter what, the important part is to be present and in action. In many cases, great works come from these sessions, works that I could have never ideate prior to sitting down. Some works require that I simply show up and trust the process, trust that something will happen.

After a few months to a year of creating new work every day, social engagement patterns begin to appear... Certain motifs resonate with larger audiences more than others, naturally I'd be compelled to create more work in that style, but that is a dangerous slippery slope for any creative person. It's too easy to fall captive of what the audience likes, too easy to get hooked on likes and compliments. The problem I see with going down that path is that it pushes you away from self-expression and towards people pleasing.

So it's utterly important to stay true to what your inner voice wants to express, to give in to curiosity, to follow along that familiar "what if..."

I've only been doing this for little under 3 years. In many ways I stand on the shoulders of giants like @beeple who's been creating everyday for over 17 years, or @toadswiback who creates 5+ works every single day, @songadaymann is another savage making music and games on the daily, @catswilleatyou with 19+ years and badasses like @m0dest___ and @Gavinmeeler who have taken on a daily practice too, and of course @RogerDickerman with his daily market reports.

It takes someone to commit to a daily practice for a few years to truly recognize others doing the same, so my upmost respect to all you legends!

If you've made all the way down here, mad respect, I really appreciate that you took the time to read it and I sincerely hope that some of my insights serve as inspiration to you in your artistic practice or in life in general.

I invite you to scroll through the thousand+ works of art I've created:
https://www.mendezmendez.com/the-present

If you're a collector and you feel a connection with any of my existing works or a new daily piece that I share, feel free to get in touch! I'm always down to talk about my work.