When it's done
The feeling that you’re done, that you don’t want to do anymore, that you’re happy to submit as is. I’d hoped the finishing of things would be more relevatory, but it’s tinged with more fatigue. Maybe it’s always this way?
When I look at my most recent work, it’s a feeling of conflict - I like bits of it, and maybe, objectively they go together - there is a unity in atmosphere. I tried ideas, I experimented, and then executed - I would not fault myself here. But I also am not happy, per se, with what I have. A beginner’s curse? But also, just normal?
Just after a piece is done, I’m too close to the work to have an opinion. I won’t feel much anything towards the piece, positive or negative. Maybe, that is the sign that it’s done, that I don’t have a strong sense of changing it further; not that I love the piece.
My final stage of painting work were taken from images from Florida - mom, her slippers, and then the wild outdoors - the overgrownness of trees and underbrush.
The first two paintings in this newsletter were the last two I made. In our review two days ago, I had simply the Palmetto painting, another somewhat abstract one of a tree, and my notebook. The positive vibes from my classmates were vital - I was feeling a bit aimless at that point, and they said basically, you’re done, if you want to be.
One said that her favorite was a page where I’d attempted to test color combinations. “Just enlarge any one of them!” I’d actually thought that page was a failure - I hadn’t been methodical enough to test colors with rigor, it just looked like a random assortment of blobs. But maybe that random and unthought application is exactly what gave it life and movement.
Another classmate thought my notebook page where I’d experimented with painting on cut pieces of paper, writing and all, could be a piece. Again, the feeling of freedom with the experimentation allowed for unthought application. I much prefer my experimental slippers to my “final” slippers.
So, maybe that’s the lesson this time, to find ways to not think about what I’m doing when creating. I don’t love the first two paintings in the newsletter, maybe because I thought too much about them, and “tried” too hard. Or maybe, painting is just such a huge landscape, that I’ve barely explored a little meadow. I hope, I’ll continue to experiment with painting as we move on to other mediums.