Elle Luna: Instead of scrolling on social media, instead of whatever else, fill in the blank you do, and instead you're making art, you're listening to your internal world, you're checking in with yourself. I mean, I, I do think the world is a little bit different because of this project. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Hey, and welcome to #The100DayProject Podcast. I'm your host, Lindsay Jean Thomson. If you're new to the community, welcome. Here's the idea: every year we pick a start date. You pick a creative project and beginning on the start date, you do your project every day for a hundred days and document it online. You can find out more at the100dayproject.org. That's “the 1 0 0 day project.org.” While you're there, sign up for our newsletter to learn more about the next round of the project. My guest today is my dear friend, Elle Luna. Elle is a designer, painter, and writer. You might know her from her beautiful book, The Crossroads of Should and Must, or from this project right here. Her current studio practice combines art making with Grof Holotropic Breathwork, exploring how creativity and conscious breathing can guide us towards our own innate wisdom and wholeness. Hi, Elle. Welcome to #The100DayProject Podcast. Elle Luna: Hi, Lindsay. Thanks for having me. Lindsay Jean Thomson: So nice to see you. You know, I was interviewing someone the other day and they said, “Oh, are you still in touch with Elle?” I was like, yeah, we're best friends. Hi. Hi. So, how do we know each other? Do you remember? Elle Luna: Well, we were just talking about this and I laughed because I don't remember. I, oh, no, I do remember. We met at one of your Women Catalysts events. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Yeah. I invited you to be a guest speaker. Elle Luna: Yeah. What year was that? Do you remember? Lindsay Jean Thomson: That would have been 2015 or 16. Elle Luna: Wow. A few things have changed since then. Lindsay Jean Thomson: A lot of life has happened since then. So yeah, we first met in 2015 or 2016, I think probably 2016. And then you invited me to help facilitate the project starting in 2017, but you had already been running the project for a few years at that point. Do you remember? Well, I remember, but do you want to share the origin of how the 100 Day Project came to be on the internet the way that it is now? Elle Luna: Sure. Sure. Yeah. So the origin of the 100 day project was when I was applying to graduate school for art, there was this fantastic class that the Pentagram designer, Michael Bierut, taught at Yale at the Yale School of Art, and it was called The 100 Day Project. And it was a class that he ran for 100 days. And the students just had to pick one design action and repeat it every day for a hundred days and document each instance of 100. And at the end of 100 days, they had a big kind of collective, you know, class sharing and everyone would present their projects. And he wrote a fantastic post on Design Observer. I think it was called “10 Years of 100 Days.” And it was all of the projects that just stood out to him as being rather exceptional. Like there was this one artist who, or designer, a person who decided to do something different with a chair every day, like using a regular wooden chair as a prop. And he thought, well, this project isn't going to get, you know, very far this, how could anyone possibly do that? And her photographs of her with this chair were so imaginative. And then there was another artist who got a, um, a bunch of paint chips from the paint supply store, cut them all up, put them in a bowl and every day she would draw a different color, which they have all these fantastic names, you know, like, you know, blueberry dream or you know, gondola ride, and she would pull each of these color chips. And then she would write a poem or a haiku about those colors. And she ended up creating a beautiful book with the color swatch on the left. And then the poem that inspired on the right. And I was so excited about what I was seeing in his class and him that I applied to Yale. I didn't get in and I thought, Oh my gosh, I will never get to do The 100 Day Project. So we all know how it turned out. Eventually, many years later, I was just walking down a road and you know how things click in serendipitous ways and times. I thought to myself, “Oh, you don't have to go to Yale to do The 100 Day Project.” So a couple of friends of mine, we all put it on the internet and that year I think we had something like 40,000 people. doing this 100 day project and nobody had to go to Yale to do it. And I don't know if Michael Bierut still teaches that class, but if he does, and if you're at Yale, I would love to hear how that class is going. I'm sure he's still doing it in his own way. He actually did the 100 day project with the global project a couple of years ago. And he, every day he drew his left hand with his right hand. I thought that was a great project, but he always said that the simpler projects are the more magical projects or he didn't use the word magical. That's my word. But he really encouraged his students, you know, to simplify, simplify, simplify. And he also is famous for saying, I'm paraphrasing, but your project doesn't begin on day one. Your project begins the day you want to quit. And I think that's right. I think that's right. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I want to go back to what you said about I don't have to go to Yale to do a hundred day project because I think a lot of people are waiting for some kind of permission or some kind of institutional like encouragement that the thing that they want to do is right or is valid. And it's actually really powerful to say, like, wait a minute, I don't have to go to Yale. What other kind of imaginary boundaries have I put up for myself that are really of my own making? Elle Luna Yeah, for sure. I also think that what's really right about #The100DayProject is this part about blocks. I think what is the most transformative for me with #The100DayProject is the practice of how to be with my blocks. I would say that's the number one learning I've had from #The100DayProject. And it's the number one issue that I have in my own painting process. And when you hit a block with your creative work, if you're in your studio or you're in your, you know, sound room or, you know, whatever, wherever you make work, when you hit a block, like how do you work through it? Your answer to that question is everything. Lindsay Jean Thomson: So how do you work through it? Elle Luna I knew you were going to ask me that. Yeah. Okay. So, all right, let me bring you into the studio. So well, first of all, can we just talk about how important a studio space is? And I don't mean like a, I don't mean a full blown studio. I don't mean like something you rent or like a, you know, renovated room, although those things can be really nice and it's worth investing in your art. You say that all the time. But having a place where you can just go and quiet the world, I think Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, he says, you must have an hour a day where you do not know what's in the newspapers. You do not know what your friends owe you. You do not know the gossip of the day. And he says that if you go and you inhabit that space every day for an hour, that you're I can't remember the end of the quote, something like, you know, something will change, something will move. So I think maybe that's #The100DayProject. The first is about, do you know how to be with your blocks? The second is about: do you have a space? Do you have a consistent space? It could just be, yeah, it could be anything. It doesn't have to actually be a room. It could just be a time on the calendar. It could be a bench that you go sit on. It could just be a place that you return to. I had a friend who had one desk, like a little folding desk for his laptop for his design work and a second folding desk for his writing. He really wanted to be a writer. And he would sit at one desk when he was doing one activity and the other desk when he was writing and he never would mix the two activities. And I think that there's something about that when you begin to protect that space physically and, uh, psychologically is sacred. Something starts to happen. So, okay, that was a tangent, but I'll bring you into my studio space. So in my studio space for many years, I've been doing these very large, abstract pieces. They're very body, they're very, I would say in the last couple years I've even lost my paintbrush. I like working with latex gloves and paint and just working right on the wall. And they are taller and wider than me in both directions, in both directions usually. And I just kept getting to a place where the painting would just stop and I didn't know how to move it forward. So I would either delete something or I would rotate it, or I would try to destroy it. But my, my methods weren't working. It – none of it was working. And then I came across a book by two artists, Marie Cassew and Stuart Copley called Art, Paint, and Passion. And it is a book about painting as a process. And in the book, they are, one of the things that they say is that we're painting as, as an activity, but we're not making paintings. And it was the first time that I stopped trying to change my canvas and I started trying to work with what was happening with me. And as opposed to trying to make the painting different, I realized maybe I was just attached to an outcome as a painter. And that book was really, really pivotal for me because it began to show me that my paintings could actually be just as much a tool about personal growth and, and self-awareness as they could also be about like technical completion, right, on the canvas, which is still very important to me. But one of the things they talk about is honoring the brush. So for anyone listening, who's an artist or a maker, do you honor what comes through your instrument? Or through your tool. What if you had to honor everything that came through the instrument or the tool? This comes right from the book. And if there's something on the canvas that comes through the brush that I don't like, how do I honor that that is what happened? It's a very slow, strange process and letting go and in letting your paintings unfold. So that's how I'm working with blocks now, but now when I see a block, I get excited in a way that I didn't before because I just feel like I have a few more tools with how to work with it. And if I can really examine what's going on, usually it's with me. I mean, it's never the painting's fault. It's with me. If I can work with that, it gets so interesting. It gets so interesting and has reignited like a whole new body of work for me, which is like the paintings are strange. They're very weird and like, that's okay. I'm not making paintings, but I am painting. Lindsay Jean Thomson: It sounds like getting curious is really a big part of it. Elle Luna: It's easy to say that, but when you have, like, a painting on the wall, and you have an idea about it being, you know, a certain way, or having a certain feeling, and then suddenly you've got some big black orb that just looks so silly and ridiculous, and you think, oh my gosh, now what am I going to do with that? You know, it's, it's, I have to say, it is a practice to be curious, but that is absolutely the way through. That's the only way through. Maybe that's where I was getting stuck was I just wasn't curious. I was being a lot more judgmental and that was shutting me down entirely. Lindsay Jean Thomson: So we have a couple of questions from the audience. Julianne Kanzaki asks: how did your relationship to #The100DayProject and yourself shift over the years? Elle Luna: Wow. That's a great question. Thanks for asking. Well, I didn't do it one year. That was a big deal. Deciding to not do something, I think, takes a lot of guts. And especially when you've done it for many years in a row, there's a bit of an attachment to continuing to do it. But taking a year off was absolutely the right decision, and I'm glad I did it. And I've applied that to other areas of my life as well. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I think it's an important question. I ask myself every year, do I feel like doing this right now? Is this the right time? Is it time for a break? And so far I have always said yes, but giving myself the option to say no, I think is really nice. Elle Luna: Are you going to do it this year? Lindsay Jean Thomson: Yeah, I might keep it really broad this year. I might keep it really broad, but I'm really enjoying painting and I think there's some things that want to be written too. So it's hard to do a writing project for #The100DayProject for me, partially because we share it on Instagram. Elle Luna: It is impossible. It's hard. It's really hard. Have you seen a good writing project? Have you seen one done really well? Lindsay Jean Thomson: I think people do really short form, like haiku. That can work really well. Or like chapbooks, but it's, it's challenging and it is a great container to work towards something. So I think if you're using it as say, you know, I'm, I'm going to write X number of words a day or for Y amount of time, or I'm going to work towards having three chapters done or something like that, I think it can be useful. The sharing of it is challenging. It's hard to share. Writing what's in progress. Elle Luna: I, uh, saw a writer once do a, um, a square snapshot, like a screen grab of her, of her writing, like in word each day. And then that would be. Her art post on Instagram. And I thought that was really clever. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Yeah, there's, there's definitely ways to do it. And I think, you know, if you're listening and you feel overwhelmed about how do I share my project that way, the way that you do it is really up to you and you can set whatever kind of boundary around that you want. It doesn't have to be daily. You can talk about your process. There's so many different ways to do it. So be, be open minded and expansive about it. Elle Luna: Can I respond to that part? Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know why this is coming to my mind, but like, if I don't post my project every day on the 100 day, you know, with the hashtag, like I won't do it. So I'm not somebody who would qualify for like, you don't have to post every day. Like you could post once a week. I don't know that I have that kind of like self restraint to do it. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that I could do there's something about accountability with the project that is so it's so like bad and it's so good. It's, you know, it just gets in there, and it really does force your hand so you have to make your project simple, or I have to make my project simple. I did. 100 days of animation one year. And I got all the way to day like 89, I think. And I just, I couldn't do those last like 11 days. I just couldn't do it. I fell apart, but you know, like I gave it everything I had and I posted every day and that felt really, really good. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I think people have a different relationship to this. And part of what I love about the project is that it's not very prescriptive. That's true. So yes, the idea is to post daily, but if that is a barrier to you participating, then I would say be gentle. Elle Luna: You're so nice. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Find a way to share. Find a way to share and find a way to do it frequently. Yes. Elle Luna: If you can do that, that's great. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Yeah, yeah. It's funny because I think it is normal and natural that we would have different ideas about the project. Elle Luna: Yeah, of course. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Yeah. I think back to like when I first got involved with the project and my understanding of it was really guided by you and to some degree Michael Bierut, who of course started it as we talked about earlier. And. You talked about it a lot as a way to practice, and I think a lot of people are doing it to practice, but I don't think that's the only reason people are doing it. And so my understanding of the project has changed over the years, but I'm me and you are you, and we can have different kind of, you know, perspectives about what the project actually is. Elle Luna: Some of my favorite, I mean, it's not just #The100DayProject where we look at repetition, right? Like in any, I guess it's probably not even art. It's probably any like field of study, but especially in art school, you know, one of the first things that you do is create a series. So, you know, if you have a tulip, do 20 tulips, do 30 tulips. You have a haystack, you know, that was Monet's. repetition. Picasso, he, he painted bulls. You can actually go to the, the University of Chicago or the Art Institute of Chicago and see his fantastic collection of bull drawings. Anytime you see an artist who's repeating something over and over again in their practice, it is such a delight. Like if you look at the Rothko's even as a set, right? Or Warhol's, what is it about repetition? What is it about screen printers, right? Like when they do a hundred prints of the same image, I just, I'm so fascinated by this idea of repetition. And one of my favorite rooms at the San Francisco MoMA is. Oh my gosh, what is her name? It's the, the, the room dedicated just to her. Oh my gosh, her name is blanking on me now. The painter, uh, it'll come to me in a minute, but she does these beautiful square paintings where she would do incredibly intricate lines, grids. Do you know her name? Are you nodding? Cause you know it. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I'm totally, I can see it, but I'm spacing, right? Elle Luna: Right. Okay. It'll come to us. She does these beautiful grids. And when I first stepped, it's almost like a chapel, this, this like round room at the back of the modern area. And in the middle, there's this perfectly designed bench. And as you walk around these rooms, you might think, God, well, it just looks like grid paper. It just looks like stripes, or it just looks like a big white piece of paper. canvas. Like, I don't get it. But if you look at her lines, it's not like a machine did those lines. They're not perfect. And the imperfection of her trying to do something perfectly is so exquisite. I kept thinking like, you know, when, when there's like a jagged edge in one of the lines, like, was that a dog that barked or was that a siren that went by or what happened? They're so human and they breathe. I mean, they're, they're, they're just exquisite. It looks like, you know, you can just see like her lifeblood in these paintings. And I can't even believe I can't remember her name, but we'll think of it. And yhere's something about that, that for me, just me, and yes, the project is totally open ended, but for me, that's where the juice is. That's where I feel like, what is it in me? That's like, where is this coming from? Where is this coming from? Like, what's, what's underneath the, the desire for a painting to be a certain way? Like, who is painting? You know, if I look at a canvas and I just intuitively know brown or big chalk or left hand or right hand or upper left corner, like, what is that voice? Where is that coming from? Whatever that is. I think if for me, if I just stay with the practice every day, I touch on some window of that every day. And I believe that window starts to open up more and more. And I trust that place implicitly, but it doesn't always make sense. Lindsay Jean Thomson: A few years ago, you were sketching me. It was really fun. I believe you did something like set a timer to do X amount of sketches and Y amount of time. And I remember asking you like, how do you know which color? Cause you're not even looking from my memory. You're just like reaching down and pulling up and it's all sort of a mystery to me. And you said something like. I just know. Elle Luna: Yeah. Yeah. What is that? What is that? And, and it's, it's interesting. Like we did a, uh, a community, I did a community mural with Lululemon in San Francisco a few years ago, and it was fantastic. We, I put like an outline up on this giant wall. I don't know how many feet it was, maybe 20, 30, 40 feet. It was really, really long. I put up the outline and then people started arriving in the morning, like with their coffee and their croissants. And, and they would say, you know, what are you doing? And I said, well, it's a community mural. Do you want to paint? And the first thing they would say, yes. And then they would say, well, I don't know how to paint. I'm not a painter. I can't do this. Everybody will see it. It's on the side of this busy road. And I said, well, what's your favorite color? Or what's the first color that you think of when you look at the mural? And people could always say like orange, red, lilac, royal blue. And I would say, okay, great, I'll go get that color for you. What size brush do you want? And they would immediately know like the thick one or the tiny one. And then they would just take that paint and that brush and they would go up to the wall and they would do the thing. So sometimes it might just be like, what color do you see? Or what brush are you going to use? Just breaking it down. For me, that really helps. But isn't it amazing that that, that like simple step takes you into such, it takes me into that place where I know things. It takes me into that intelligence or what I would call is like essence. I was thinking about what I wanted to share and one of the things I did want to share is about essence. Can I, I have a quote, can I read it? Yes, please. This is from Elizabeth Kubler Ross, and this is her talking about essence, and I, I think this is like what is driving paintings for me on a good day. “You are not your wealth, your credit reading, your resume, your neighborhood, your grades, your mistakes, your body, role, or titles. None of this is you because it is changeable. It is impermanent. There is a part of you that is indefinable and changeless, that doesn't get lost or change with age, disease, or circumstances. There is an authenticity that you were born with, have lived with, and will die with. This is your essence.” Lindsay Jean Thomson: So this idea of like trust has come up in a couple of the interviews that I've done so far. And authenticity could be another way of saying that. And it is really powerful to witness when you are able to develop that trust. And it's something that you. really embody so well. I, do you remember when we were painting my living room? We made a mural in my living room a few years ago. So fun. And I said, I said, I don't know how to paint flowers. And you're like, you're not painting flowers. You're just painting shapes. You're such a good and generous teacher in that way. Elle Luna: Well, that's one way to do it. I think the other way that I'm starting to lean into more is from, I've, I've been studying Stan Grof's Holotropic Breathwork for a few years, and I'm in the facilitation training. And one of the tenants for holotropic breathwork is, is make it bigger. So if you're feeling a little bit upset, get really upset. If you're feeling a little bit sad, be as sad as you can possibly be. If you are feeling like you want to fall apart, fall apart all the way down to your toenails. How do you make it bigger? So one of the things in painting, the way that's translated is. When I'm really afraid of losing a painting and I feel like it's going to slip through my hands, just lose it. Like, what would it take for me to do to actually lose the crap out of it? Or if I feel like, God, this brown is so ugly, like there was this big mural I was working on at an artist residency, Fitz Artist Residency, and I was working on this really large piece and I felt like I was in prison with this painting and I was just looking at it feeling like, “Oh, I don't know what to do.” I'm totally stuck. Like, I was trying all my methods. This was like a couple of months ago. I was just trying all my methods. Nothing was working and I felt totally ridiculous. I was at a beautiful painting residency. I had all of the time and space to do this incredible painting and I was totally paralyzed. And then everything changed when I decided to put a prison in my painting. And I drew myself in the prison inside my painting. And then all of a sudden, all kinds of things happened. But what happens when, instead of trying to not be in a prison, you just get really in it? So in it that you put it in your work? Yeah, I think there's something, there's something to that, especially, you know, when we think we can't do something, well then, you know, definitely do it. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I think that's like the nice invitation of the project too, right? If, if there's like a pull there, then this is your invitation to, to just do it. Elle Luna: Yeah. If you think that you could never draw hands. Great. Draw the craziest hands ever. Make the fingers enormous like that movie, uh, Everything Everywhere All At Once. Just give her like huge fingers, you know, like what, who cares? Go for it. You know, like go for it. Go for it. Yeah. I think that's it. Go for it. I took a note. Oh yeah. That's I wrote down. Do something. That was my one note that I wanted for this podcast. Yeah, I guess the first thing is like just to do something and sometimes just starting is the hardest part, right? Like, oh gosh, where would I start? I have all these ideas. How could I pick one? Just start, just do something. And then once you do something, when you want to stop doing that one thing, I would say, you know, lean into it and let it rip. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Go bigger. Elle Luna: Yeah. Make it bigger. Lindsay Jean Thomson: So I started painting a couple of years ago and you've been so encouraging. You guys, I will send Elle pictures of my very rudimentary watercolors, almost like a kindergartner would approach their mom and say, look, mom, look what I made and you're, you're always so effusively encouraging. It's really a beautiful quality. Elle Luna: Lindsay, people spend their entire lives trying to paint kindergarten paintings. There is something so beautiful you're processed right now and anybody who's just beginning, don't throw any of those away. Keep all of them because there is so much not knowing. It is pure expression. Like your watercolors are such an example of that they're, they're free. They're uninhibited. There's not a lot of thinking I can tell you're just in flow or the word I would use would be in essence. And you're just making, I mean, the quantity alone shows that you're, you're just in this like place of grace. I, and I would say just, you know, making from the heart, not from the head. You don't know what a, you know, a this or that is supposed to look like. You don't have any rules in your mind. No teacher has told you, “don't let your brush strokes show” or any ridiculous, insane rules like that. And I mean, you can actually really be free and make. And I think it was, uh, gosh, I'm, I'm losing all my names today. Who is the painter? Uh, It'll come to me later. We'll put it in the show notes. He, uh, was he did these beautiful, complicated, messy, crazy paintings that were just like juicy. And I don't know, they look like they were just like bubbling and like so alive with chaos, like primordial soup paintings for forever. And then at the end of his life, he. Started like they, they started opening up almost like clouds beginning to thin and his brushstrokes started getting like longer and leaner and lighter. And towards the end of his life, he had these just beautiful breathing canvases with just a couple of wisps of brushstrokes. And there's, there's something about that that you get for free early on when you're just starting. So enjoy, enjoy your, where you are. It's, it's wonderful to watch you work. It's so free and your colors, they're just beautiful. The layering, all of your experimentation. I secretly selfishly hope you do the project this year with your paintings just so I can see where they go. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Well, I'm having a lot of fun and I think there is a lot of benefit to being a beginner, you kind of lose an attachment to something being good or being specific. I couldn't really work towards a particular outcome if I wanted to, because that's not really what my skill level is. So a lot of it is just the presence of like, “Oh, that's where the paint went.” How do I make it go in a way that's, how do I work with what's there? How do I make it interesting to me? How do I have fun with what's right here in front of me? And for me, that's been a really powerful experience. Elle Luna: I do want to call out that one of the questions you did not just ask is, how do I make this so that someone will buy it so that I can pay for rent or a bus ticket or whatever it is that someone might need? I think the minute you need to sell work to pay for essential things in your life, you run the risk of the work changing. So it's important. It's, it's wonderful if you can sell your paintings and when people reach out to you and say, I really would love to buy that, let them pay for it and figure out prices that, that really value you as a, as a maker. Not you, Lindsay. I mean, of course you, but anybody who's listening to this, um, everybody, myself included. And also, I don't know, there's something in myself where like I chose early on to never ask my art to, to like, you know, pay for my life. Lindsay Jean Thomson: We have another question from the audience. I feel like it's on a similar line. Rukmini Poddar, who is one of the podcast guests, she has been doing the project for a decade. Elle Luna: Wow. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Yeah! She says, what has been your most creatively satisfying project? Elle Luna: Visual painting projects. So this year. Don't tell anyone. This year, I think I'm going to do a visual painting project again, and I think I'm going to do 30 minutes. So I always set a timer. Um, for those of you on the video, I'm holding up my Ikea, my Ikea timer. I have a digital timer always. It's literally with me wherever I am. I will do, I've been practicing actually. Can I do a meaningful painting in 30 minutes a day? And the answer so far is kind of. I find it takes longer for me to drop in fully, but 30 minutes is definitely enough. Last week I worked on one piece over two days. So that happened, but I think that's what I'm going to do this year. So visual painting, but I need to be able to have, um, I travel a lot, so everything needs to be portable. It needs to fit in a backpack and I need to be able to do it on an airplane. Um, for a hundred days, that's pretty important. And. I would also say just connecting with the community more. You and I have talked about maybe some things up our sleeves this year. I just am craving like being in-person. I'm craving groups. I'm craving, I feel like next year is like the, the year of re-emergence. Yeah. Just wanting to meet with more people. I feel like this process, I mean, yes, we are making art, but it's about life. It's about living. And I think this is the most important thing I do or not even do. Just get to. Be in and of and getting to connect with you all online and in person is, is incredibly meaningful. And thank you, Lindsay, for continuing to steer this mighty ship. We all, I mean, literally y'all, the project runs because of Lindsay. Everything happens, the podcasts, the newsletters, everything happens because of Lindsay. And it would have been so easy for it to have dissolved. And gone wayside. So Lindsay, my hat, my eternal hat of gratitude is off to you for carrying the ship and doing so in monumental leaps and bounds. Thank you. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Well, I have to say thank you for inviting me to be part of it with you. It has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. To get to participate in and facilitate this community. I think it's such a special place and, you know, people are, are often wondering if or when you'll be back. I describe you as sort of like a spiritual, uh, fairy godmother. Which is to say, you come and go whenever your spirit guides you here, and we're always happy to see you. So I did not say, “hand over that hashtag! I'm taking it away.” Elle Luna: It's all, all yours. Lindsay jean Thomson: Well, you know, I think the beauty of it is that it's everybody's, you know. Elle Luna: That's true. Well, and it is, it is a lot of, a lot of conscious effort to, to keep it all going. And it's noticed and appreciated. Lindsay Jean THomson: Thanks, honey. I remember, I'm not sure I'll put this in the podcast, but I don't know if you remember, but when You first kind of invited me to help facilitate. I, I said something like, “hmm, I only have like 500 Instagram followers. Like, are you sure?” And you were so wildly uninterested in that you were just sort of like, yeah, I'm sure. Do you want to do it or not? You know, and it really, I think I can remember that. Yeah, yeah, you were just sort of like not entertaining that conversation, you know, certainly Elle Luna: Good. I love that. I did that. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Yeah. And Yeah, I mean, I, I think it really speaks to the way in which you encourage everybody to take up space and to express themselves and to go bigger. Elle Luna: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Make it bigger, people. Make it bigger. Make it bigger in your own life. I mean, I mean, I've said this before and I, I, I'll say it again, like I, I do think the 100 Day Project is a little bit of a subversive art project. Like, if we could take. I mean, think about how many people do the project. Let's say every person every day for a hundred days takes 30 minutes back, like reclaims that time instead of scrolling on social media, instead of whatever else fill in the blank you do. And instead you're making art, you're listening to your internal world, you're checking in with yourself. I mean, I, I do think the world is a little bit different because of this project. I, I believe, like, I sometimes imagine, like, wow, there's someone in, you know, Baltimore who's just done, you know, played this musical instrument that she hasn't gotten out of storage for years. Or there's someone in Denver, she's picked up her camera again. There's someone in Florida and he's, you know, making art with his kids every night before dinner. Like, I, I think there's something, there's something really important about what we do. And yeah, I don't, I don't know how else to say it. It just, it comes from the heart. It, it, it's so meaningful and it matters. So I think it's for myself important to like, you know, really block off the time to take it as seriously as any other commitment that I have on my calendar to make sure that I like kind of get my elbows out and swing them a little when I need to like, you know, disaster over here, emergency over here. Like, no, I am not available. I am not available. I'm doing my project. This is sacred time. This is non-negotiable time. How do we get to that place? And then, even better, when #The100DayProject turns into a 365 day project, somebody said to me once, uh, what would your 100 year project be? Isn't that a great question? What would your 100 year project be? Is there a project that you would do that you know would, I mean, I guess you're required to be there, but like that would outlive you. Like, what would that be? It's a big question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's um, there is, the project is definitely something of a wake up call. I love that about it. And it's, it's, I think it's, it's waking us up to whether you call it heart or essence or, that voice that knows I trust it. I trust it. Lindsay jean Thomson: Well, last question, unless there's something else that you want to talk about, but what, uh, what is next? Where can the good people find you? Where can they connect? You kind of hinted at some in person and more community things this year. Tell us about it. Elle Luna: If you're a visual artist, sign up for my newsletter. If you are interested in holotropic breath work, sign up for my newsletter. If you, I guess that's it. Those are the two things that are coming. So I will be leading a group concurrent with #The100DayProject. I think it will have a, a slightly different focus this year then it has in the past. So that will be announced on my newsletter and. Yeah, newsletter is where all the good things are happening. But I think I just, I don't know. There's something about 2025 that feels a lot's happening really quickly. We were going through a lot of change very quickly, not only here within America, but at a global level. I mean, every time. I look up, there's so much change, and it's very mysterious. And I think the planet is evolving in some ways, like with or without us, the planet is evolving. And I see all of this work as mattering in that larger landscape. And I, for myself, personally, I've just been really craving more community and more, uh, yeah, more group process. So 2025 is going to be the year of the group and I'm looking for all different ways to do that. And my newsletter, you can find it at elleluna.art. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Well, I'll be sure to share it with the #100DayProject newsletter. Of course. Thank you so much for being here today, Elle. Elle Luna: Thanks, Lindsay. Before we go, can I ask you a question? Really? Lindsay Jean Thomson: Of course, we can do whatever we want. We're making this up as we go. I'm curious for you, well, I, I would love to hear what #The100DayProject means to you. I mean, you have such an interesting perspective, right? Like, I think of you as sitting in, I don't know, you're like the pilot, and you and I are co pilots, but you're, you're the main pilot. And that all these, we're flying over, you know, all this territory with all these, I don't know, I'm just winging this metaphor, but yeah, what does it mean to you to be like, to see this at scale and to see so many people making time for this and carving out time for their process? Like, what do you think is happening in this? Why do you think people keep signing up? Why do you think are not signing up, but doing it and participating? Why, why does it have such a following that it does? It really, I mean, it's how many years now? Lindsay Jean Thomson: I think this is the 12th year. Elle Luna: Yeah. 12, 12 years. What, what's happening? What do you think? Lindsay Jean Thomson: And the beautiful thing and then, and the nature of it is that people share it. And that means that their friends and followers get curious about it. And maybe they watch for a few years, maybe they watch for 10 years, but it sparks some kind of awareness in them. There's something really magical about it. There's something kind of mysterious and you know, there's any number of sort of like daily challenges, right? And they're all, they're all wonderful. There's Inktober and there's NaNoWriMo and. And if you are someone who is thinking of starting your own kind of daily creative challenge, please do. Nobody owns the idea of like, getting people to make daily. Please do like really go out there and share whatever it is that you are thinking about. I think the thing that is really important. special about it is that it's not prescriptive. And that is also the thing that's really a challenge, right? So most of these other ones have a more firmly defined container, right, about either like the material or the output. And this is, I think the challenge that like any creative person faces, which is, I was talking about this in my interview with Anna Bronnes last week is like, there's this degree of structure that you need, but also this degree of freedom. And I think what's really special about #The100DayProject is it encourages people to find out what that is for themselves. And what that is for me is going to be different than what is for you. Elle Luna: Yes. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Yes. But it's beautiful and wonderful and you know there are over 2. 4 million posts on Instagram. Elle Luna: I believe it. I believe it. But I love that. I love that so much. Like who's the uh, filmmaker who wrote Catching the Big Fish? Today is not my day for names. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I want to say this is also, this is December 23rd. I think everybody is sort of like mentally winding down for the year. Elle Luna: David Lynch. David Lynch. We got it. Okay, so David Lynch wrote this book called Catching the Big Fish. If you're interested in reading it, listen to it on Audible or audio because he narrates it. It is so great. And in there, he talks about if he's going to paint, he's also a marvelous painter. If he's going to paint, he needs three hours and, or what did he say? He needs four hours for one good hour of painting. And that's such a great example of what you just said about like four hours. It's different for everybody. Like, can I make a painting in 30 minutes? Does doing it quickly actually help silence the inner critic? Does doing it quickly actually like get me more into essence and into flow? Maybe. What would happen if I extended that to an hour or to three hours or four hours? I wouldn't ever commit to that for 100 days. I would never be able to keep that up. But it's such a great thing to know about your own process. And also I want to highlight what you said about like, if, if you want to start your own, #The100DayProject, like to do it, it's just so wonderful. Like to say, like, there's actually, there's no such thing as competitors with what we're doing, because it's actually just like, if more people do it, it's like, great. Join the movement. Like we're all doing it. Lindsay Jean Thomson: That's the plan. Yeah. Elle Luna: Make it bigger for everybody. And I, I just think that's what a great, What a great thing like to have something that is so life giving that we want to make it bigger and no matter what that looks like for for people to keep growing it and for this work to touch more people, I think. Yeah, it's powerful work and finds its way to the people who are, are ready, or maybe not quite ready, but looking on with anticipation. And uh, if you're out there listening to this thinking, yeah, they could do it, but not me. Like I could never paint or I could never sew or I could never throw a potter's on a potter's wheel. I would say, um, that's an interesting point. An interesting belief. And Lindsay and I would say, go for it. Just do it. Lindsay Jean Thomson: What did you write on the post it note? Elle Luna: Do something. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Do something. There we go. There's our through line. Take that first step. Thanks so much for joining us on the podcast Elle. You can find out more about Elle's work and connect with her at elleluna.art. My guest next week is Anna Bronnes. Here's a sneak peek. Anna Brones: I mean, I love that you bring up that community thing though, because I think that something that I think a lot about is that for some reason, we're still living with this like myth of the solitary artist and creative, and I think that obviously we need alone time and solitude to get work done, of course, but I think we really just don't highlight how much we need other people in our creative lives. Other creatives, but also just other people who want to support our creativity. Right. And, and I think that that's probably also just because of the culture that we live in, you know, a highly individual culture where it's sort of a forge your own path, do it alone. Right. And it's like, we just don't do it alone. So it's, it's not surprising to me that the artists that you connect with are really actively involved in community, because I think a lot of us, we create what we need.