719 days and counting: This artist has been cutting paper with tiny blades every day for two years

Annyen Lam is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto, Ontario whose work includes — among many other things — papercutting. 

In 2015, Lam took that practice to a new level with the Tiny Blades Project.

"I basically said at first that I would cut something out of paper every day for 365 days, and post it on the internet so I would be accountable for it," Lam says in the above video, produced for CBC Arts by Emily Diana Ruth. And not only did Lam succeed in her quest, she kept going: at the time this video was made, she had completed 650 straight days of the project (and according to her Instagram, it's now 719).

"A huge reason why I began this project was to sort of make myself do something every day, and how much the process of making work can be more important than the idea of a product," she says.

The project has also helped Lam come to terms with some of her insecurities as an artist.

"I think I got through a lot of it by kind of just realizing that I should get to work rather than completely figure out who I was before getting started," she says. "I think that happens as a result of becoming an artist, not the other way around."

See more of Lam's work here.