The 10 Project: Sad Irons

Consider the sad iron.  

Write a story of a life involving the use and discourse of the sad iron.  

Consider it's functional and decorative use.  Imagine the user.  Describe her place in the story.  Subject.  Actor.  Teller.  

Remove from her the use.

Imagine the transformation that came with the steam iron.

Wonder at the useful object made decorative.  

Wonder at the change in her labor and continuity of the sad iron.

The 10 Project: Recipes of Recreation & Restoration

Take a vintage cookbook from the first half of the 20th century.  Using only the recipes found in the cookbook, construct a menu for a dinner party of 11 guests.

Invite 12 guests.  Purchase the ingredients for the menu and ask the guests to arrive early to help prepare the meal.  Do no cooking yourself.

Assign the extra guest the role of archivist.  Provide no requirements beyond the need to present an archive of the event the week following.

Refuse to eat any of the food.  Insist you are not hungry.  Secretly resent the other diners.  

Publish the archive.

The 10 Project: Landscape

Look at the landscape in front of you.  Study the plants, trees and characteristics that make up its composition.  Consider your favorite flora.  Note what appeals to you about a particular tree or plant. Think about what that thing means to you.

Look again at the landscape and imagine it in the past with fewer or smaller plants and trees.  Imagine the decisions made in the care and creation of the landscape that led to its present state.  Consider what the landscape might look like without your favorite tree or plant.  What if that species were entirely absent from the landscape?

Imagine a plan for the future of the landscape.  Consider the lifecycle of the trees and plants.  Determine which trees and plants will continue to grow in the landscape and how they will mature.  Decide which plants and trees will die and disappear.  Which ones will be replanted and continue anew but differently.

Take this imaginary future of the landscape and compose it in some form that can be shared with fellow gardeners and landscapers as part of a proposition of possibility for the landscape.