EXERCISES IN LEARNING TO LOVE YOU MORE
By THE HBC STAFF

Learning To Love You More is an interactive community art project created by Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July that can be viewed online at learningtoloveyoumore.com. The creators provide "assignments" for community members to create on their own and send in, the idea being that creative people will be even more creative if they have to work within the restraints of an assignment. A recently-published book of the same name collects some of the completed projects in one volume.

Here, a few members of the HBC take on the Learning to Love You More projects. We took a few liberties with some of the rules in order to tell a story or two, but that's because we're rebels.

ASSIGNMENT 18 Recreate a poster you had as a teenager. This is my rendition of a poster I had from about eighth grade until I moved to Santa Barbara for university. It's supposed to be Uncle Sam doing his stereotypical point, but instead of telling you to join the army, he's telling people to stay home. The poster was given to me on Career Day at my middle school by an army reserve recruiter; the idea was that those who join the reserves stay at home most of the time. Right. Anyhow, I chopped off the reserve insignia myself and put it up on my door, where it remained for several years. I don't have much artistic skill, so I think my "Uncle Sam" looks more like an angry man displaying his deformed finger for the masses, but it was fun to think about what I used to have in my room and the things that I thought represented me at the time. (Bri Lafond)

ASSIGNMENT 27 Take a picture of the sun. This is the sun on the morning of October 25, 2007. The fires in Southern California filled the sky with smoke, giving the sun a natural veil. I was on my way to work when I saw the sun framed by these palm trees, so I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and fumbled around in my bag for my camera. Several people gave me odd looks, but I just had to get this shot. (Bri Lafond) [click on the photo to enlarge]

ASSIGNMENT 42
List five events from 1984.

1. The Summer Olympics took place in my hometown of Los Angeles, but the only part I remember is watching Mary Lou Retton's vault on television and not liking her because Nadia Comaneci was totally better. I had never seen Comaneci perform, as I was not alive to see the 1976 Montreal Olympics, but I did watch a TV movie made about her.

2. After years surrounded by brothers and male friends, I made my first female best friend, and we became a two-girl clique. We only grudgingly allowed a third girl to play with us during free time.

3. Said best friend taught me the joke that ends with "orange you glad I didn't say 'banana'?"

4. I read Freckle Juice by Judy Blume for the first time and decided that Freckle Juice sounded completely nasty. Four years later, during a classmate's book project, I actually tried it and discover that I was correct. No freckles were produced from the drinking of said concoction, but I didn't get sick like the kid in the story did, either.

5. After failed attempts to use children's scissors designed for left-handers, this lefty began using right-handed scissors, which are constructed far better and which my classmate discovered are sharper after he stabbed himself in the arm during class. Our entire class learned not to run with scissors that day.
(Yennie Cheung)

ASSIGNMENT 9 Draw a constellation from someone's freckles. This is my sister Kaitlyn's arm. I just freehanded between her freckles and this is what I created. I named him Hubert. My sister washed him off the second I took the picture. The difficult part of this assignment was getting Kaitlyn to sit still; she kept insisting that I was tickling her. So, any wavy lines are totally her fault. (Bri Lafond) [click on the photo to enlarge]

ASSIGNMENT 30 Take a picture of strangers holding hands. That's another co-worker of mine, Jed, on the right. We asked a girl who was talking on her cell phone to hold his hand for a moment while I took the picture. She didn't really answer us, but she grabbed Jed's hand and continued her conversation. I suppose one could analyze the picture and say that it truly represents that alienation and indifference that makes us all strangers in contemporary culture...but I just like the look on Jed's face. (Bri Lafond)

ASSIGNMENT 32
Draw a scene from a movie that made you cry.

From Sophie's Choice: This is a drawing of Sophie's choice (of which of her kids to give to the Nazis). (Libby K. Hartigan)

ASSIGNMENT 58
Record the sound that is keeping you awake.

[mp3 file]

This is a very loud power saw of some sort. When I recorded this, I was working on four hours of sleep and had a headache. I was hoping to take a nap, but the construction workers outside had some other ideas. Naturally, as soon as I started recording this, the person wielding the saw decided to take a break. (Yennie Cheung)

ASSIGNMENT 11
Photograph a scar and write about it.

SCAR 1: It's hard to see in photographs, but this scar on the top of my foot is from when I cut it on the corner of a mirror with an Aerosmith logo painted on it that my 31-year-old boyfriend stole from a mall headshop in New Jersey and poorly affixed to the inside roof of his van. Because I wasn't supposed to be in cars with boys when I was 15, he dropped me off six blocks from my house, and I limped home. I managed to keep my bandaged foot hidden from my mother for weeks. When she finally saw it, it was scabbed over, and I told her I cut it on my locker. (Marie Mundaca) [click on the photo to enlarge]

SCAR 2: I was about eight or nine when I got this scar on my knee. We lived at the top of a relatively steep hill, and all the cool kids would rollerblade or bike down the hill at top speed, generally making them look even cooler. One day, I decided to try speeding down the hill on my own bike—the Pink and Purple Wonder.

I did all right for the first 50 feet or so, but I suddenly panicked when I realized that I didn't know how to stop. I swerved my bike towards the grass and bushes—hoping to break my fall there—but I only succeeded in throwing myself and the bike off balance, causing one of those crashes where everything ends up airborne and time stands still for a few moments before smashing back into the real world. I skinned the hell out of my knee and ran home crying. The gash eventually scabbed over into a gnarly-looking patch, and it slowly faded into this sickly white spot.

This was an interesting assignment because I'd never really though about my scars before. I have a few—mostly cat and dog scratches—but then I spotted the one on my knee and this memory came back to me. (Bri Lafond)
[click on the photo to enlarge]

ASSIGNMENT 8 Curate an artist's retrospective in a public place. This is my tribute to the Renaissance Modernist painter Parmigianino. I put the exhibit up in the tutoring room at my job, since the walls have always been quite boring. One of my co-workers, Chris, decided that he wanted to put up his own artist retrospective near mine so that we can finally combat the serious case of boring in our workplace. (Bri Lafond) [click on the photos to enlarge]

ASSIGNMENT 44
Create your own LTLYM assignment and give an example.

Make a list of potential band names based on pieces of overheard conversation or on your own conversation taken out of context. Then, describe the kind of music each band would play.

1. Rhythms & Refreshments (two words that a student needed help spelling)
A big ensemble on par with the Arcade Fire and/or the Polyphonic Spree, who hand out appetizers as they sing in chorus. Their sound is neo-folk with gospel and country influences.

2. The Lacanian Slovenians (observation about my recent "to read" list)
Two guys with thick-rimmed glasses and Members Only jackets who play nerd rock to its logical and musical extremes. Think of Harry and the Potters but Zizek-inspired and possibly wearing orthopedic shoes.

3. The Elephant Trunk Banana Hammock Experience (inexplicable phrase overheard at work)
This would be a bevy of frat-type guys doing spoken filth-type recitation to computer-generated backing music. Think of the Bloodhound Gang, but with fewer costumes and even more sitting around, completely wasted on vomit-stained couches.

This was a fun one. Actually, I've played this game with friends before, but never with quite as much detail. (Bri Lafond)

(December, 2007)