For seven years, writer and filmmaker Miranda July and artist Harrell Fletcher maintained a site called Learning to Love You More, where they posted creative assignments “to inspire people to see the world in new ways.”  The site has since been taken over by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection (so you can no longer submit your results), but you can still see the various assignments online, if you’re curious.  You might even want to try a few.

Here are a couple that July submitted to February’s issue of O Magazine.  I thought they looked fun (and stress-reducing).

Take a family portrait under the table: This one is simple.  Next time you and your family are all seated around the dinner table, get your camera, turn on the flash, get under the table, and take a picture of all the legs.  If your family members start doing funny things with their legs, tell them to stop, or wait until they do; the idea is to record the legs in their natural state.  If you want your own legs in the picture, too, then you’ll have to use a self-timer, or do it at a restaurant and ask a waiter, nicely.

Here’s ours:

Draw their hair: Think about the people who stirred you up last year—the ones who enraged you, made you feel lustful, brought out your tenderness, and so on.  Now think of their hair.  Using the SketchBook O app [this was offered free for a time] or a piece of white paper, draw just the hair of each of these people.  Draw carefully, using a picture as a reference if you have one, and notice the details.  The hair should float on the page, with no face or body or head attached.  Under each hair drawing, write the feeling elicited by the person with this hair; for example, “Made me deeply ashamed” or “Made me want to punch something.”  You can do as many hair drawings as you want, but they should all be on the same page, in a row or rows.  There should be nothing else on the page—no decorations or names—just the hair and the captions.  Use color, or not—whatever you prefer.

Here are a few from the Learning to Love You More website:

Assignment #59: Interview someone who has experienced war: Interview someone who has experienced war from any perspective–soldier, aid worker, civilian, protester, etc.  Ask them to tell one war story—one experience that has stayed with them.  For example, the story could describe the details of a typical night living in a city that is being bombed, or something surprising that happened while on duty.  Ask them everything you really want to know about this story.  Write the story down verbatim, including your questions.  Give your interview a title like this: “Sarah Smith was an aid worker in Cambodia in 1982” or “Malik Shalhoub is a musician living in Lebanon in 2006.”  If the person you interviewed doesn’t want to use their last name or wants to use a false name, that’s fine.

Assignment #58: Record the sound that is keeping you awake.  Next time you are laying in bed trying to block out the sound that is keeping you awake, get up and record it.  Perhaps this is the sound of your boyfriend snoring, a dog or truck outside, or your baby crying.  Get as close as possible to the source and make a fifteen second recording of the bothersome sound.  Send us a copy of your recording and give us a name that briefly describes it, such as “My Boyfriend Chris Snoring.”

Can you imagine the wealth of information July and Fletcher have received over seven years’ time?  I love the fact they’ve thought up assignments to bring us all to a deeper awareness of each other.  Can you do this in your situation—at work or at home or wherever you are?

[Post image: Miranda July]