Reflecting

Sometimes it's time to take stock. Here's a whole gallery of variety. I heard a great podcast the other day that explained the difference between voice and style. These are all 'me' speaking. But what I say is different every time.

Like most artists, I am constantly reviewing and reflecting on 'what's good'.  Sometimes I pick up the paintings around me when they are a year or two old, and paint on them some more. I love that feeling, and I feel not only the paint but the meaning deepens. I think maybe my paintings are organic reflections of how the world moves through me. My paintings seem to be like photos forever in the development bath, or poems being continually revised.

One of the messages I've taken to heart over the last few years in art courses is that people (viewers / collectors) like a story to go with your work. I've never been able to give one, so have hung onto a sense of failure around that. (What is my art 'about'? Who am I as an artist? Am I an artist?). Everything I tried seemed a little disingenuous. My paintings change as I change, and I change as the world around me changes and that's that. I paint what I want when I want.

This realization is giving me a sense of peace around my 'struggle'. I've always felt pressure to 'finish' a painting; felt there had to be an 'endpoint'; that a painting must eventually be 'done', ready for the gallery or a sale; that a daub here or a line there would be the icing on the cake - but I am discovering that isn't so. Sometimes paintings move away to live with other people and then I have no say over them anymore, but if they're hanging around I suppose they might want a little more love. A painting is never 'finished' - we just stop working on them and move on to different ones.