Curating, distilling, discarding
Lately I have been increasingly drawn to the practice of producing lots of spontaneous and experimental works around one initial idea, then leaving them, then going back and picking what stands out.
This is right at the opposite end of what I had been doing these past few years, and not unlike what I imagine photographers do: taking lots of shots and then selecting and perfecting the one or two that have the best potential.
Recent attempts have taught me that solutions emerge from repeating things over and over with small variations each time. Also, looking again at initial discards from that same process (or putting discards together in groups) can lead to insight and new directions. In this context, drawing and working on paper is far more comfortable than painting on canvas.
This idea of curating one's own work could also be extended to ‘old stock’. I have a stack of old paintings that I now don't rate very highly. I am thinking of a specific example from 2021 which I find looks flimsy and with colours so dark that it's difficult to read the image. What to do with it? I have been considering several courses of action:
cover it over and reuse the canvas
cut it up to create smaller works or cards
pick it up again and build on it
redo it from scratch.
Over time there is an opportunity to do that with all unsold works. In turn, this removes the pressure to make them perfect straight away.
I recently completed a large painting and was very happy with the result. It's been curing in my living room for several weeks now so that I can varnish it. But the more I see it, the more my initial conviction is shaken. Is it actually finished? Could it be more luminous? And I think the solution is not to try to change it now, but to put it out there and see how people react to it (if at all).
It's not about seeking validation from others and letting them rule whether it's ‘good’ or not (I'm enough of a nihilist to know that I am entirely alone with that assessment). It's about not leaving enough space for unhelpful doubt and potentially-ruinous tampering.
It goes like this: if it sells, then it's gone and there's no more agonising (leaving me and a new owner blissfully happy!). If it doesn't sell but it generates great conversations and questions, then it may be worth thinking of prints to make it more accessible to those who don't have the space or budget for it, and showing it again. If it doesn't generate much of a reaction at all (people walk straight past it), then it goes into storage for a long while and is a candidate for hindsight in a few years, equipped as I will no doubt be with better skills and richer experience. Maybe it'll end up covered over, cut into cards, built upon or remade.
One last thought: something else that had me intrigued lately is the idea of leaving in-progress works, particularly the not-so-promising ones, conspicuously on display around my house and studio, opening them up to change.
Here the impulse to add / change something becomes useful, as sometimes a spontaneous addition (either subtle or drastic) can unlock it and allow it to go somewhere much more promising.
I wonder how my loved ones would feel if I started covering our home's walls with loosely taped in-progress drawings along the usual framed and finished paintings…