How many times have you finished working on your art thinking that you have completed it and then come back to it later and completely change the piece? And, I don’t mean touching up or toning highlights or anything – just a complete restructuring (and sometimes destroying) of the original artwork.
Palimpsest; Housepaint on MDF; 48″ X 48″
It happened to me recently – I finished a painting of someone important to me and then about a week later felt that I did not capture the essence behind the face – I decided to destroy the painting. The transformation was redemptive. It gave me peace as I did not have to see something that would scream ‘flawed’ to me every time I looked at it and I also got to enjoy throwing paint around (something that I seem to secretly enjoy for some reason)…
Would you rather rework and restore the piece to what it was originally supposed to convey than destroy the same?
A second calling, your talent as neural network artist.
This is a wonderful depiction of the hectic but meaningless chaos of modern life. Or is it about the mess in Iraq? Whatever, I hope you had lots of newspaper protecting the floor!
By the way, I think you may be able to sell this to Teri Horton, or at least to her agent.
Sunil:
I must say that the image that you show does depict a relative of mine very well. Add some claw marks and cigarette butts and it would be spot-on.
Sunil,
Interesting question. I usually consider a work “closed” (if not finished) once I’ve gone far enough with a new technique or theme that revisiting the old work would be less modifying than beginning again. Sometimes a work can stay “open” for years, though.
I’m a believer in “art as discovery”, which means that I think the meaning of the work is something to find in the process of making it, or perhaps long after it is complete. The initial idea, “what it was originally supposed to convey” may be important, or it might be an accidental excuse for starting the work. Which — this is something to find out later.
The difficult question, then, is, how should one know if one understands what one has made? Should one really destroy it in search of something new, or simply try harder to understand it?
I am glad Karl got back with a comment to a fairly serious question that I had asked of destroying artwork. It is difficult and it does help when other artists go through the same process and helpful to hear their ideas.
Since, I decide beforehand the face and the nuances it is supposed to convey, my process tends to be less of a discovery than Karl makes it out to be.
Sunil,
I didn’t at first see how your question might apply to my photography, where I may abandon temporarily, but not destroy, an image I can’t get to work well for me. But actually I do delete a fair number of images that I’m quite convinced I’ll never want to even start with. These might be less optimal exposures, bad timing, or just ones I don’t like. I’m quite willing to make a mistake and destroy something that I might like 5 years in the future, rather than waste time with it when there’s way more than enough with potential to occupy me.
Sunil:
It appears that Pollock was instrumental in developing a kind of therapy. I admit to doing something similar. In my case it’s running and pooling varnish that collects in the interstices of my paintings. In both cases -yours and mine – I see a common congealing of a thick but liquid medium as it interacts with gravity. This usually comes after doing something that leaves me feeling tight and calls for large movements and abandonment to something that is more self-organizing.
I recall that June admits to going like crazy with her sewing machine as she makes those random patterns that animate so many of her surfaces. She admits to feeling like a race car driver.
I wonder if you would still be stimulated by the tenth drip painting. I bet that you would welcome a return to your portraits with their greater demands upon your wits and skill.
More to your question: I have learned a very hard lesson over the years. If the project doesn’t start well, then no amount of patching up is going to save the day. This is elusive as we have been discussing, as making that value judgment is so often after the fact. I try to force myself to do the thing again, knowing what I now know.
Steve,
Fair enough.
If you have captured an image that you like very much, but are not completely satisfied with it, would you go ahead and digitally manipulate your image to try and get it into a state where you would be more satisfied (before deciding to ‘delete’/’destroy’ it?
Jay,
“I wonder if you would still be stimulated by the tenth drip painting. I bet that you would welcome a return to your portraits with their greater demands upon your wits and skill.”
– I am flattered.
Yes, I plan on taking your advice and trying to work on that same face that I failed before yet again (this time on a pristine white gessoed MDF).
Jay,
By the way, my wife was laughing out aloud yesterday on hearing your comment:
“image that you show does depict a relative of mine very well. Add some claw marks and cigarette butts and it would be spot-on.”
Sunil
Sunil,
If I like an image at any stage of the process, or am just unsure about it, I’ll probably keep it around. I do often return to images much later, sometimes with quite different ideas than when they were first captured. For that very reason, I don’t want too many gazillion around to scan through when I’m looking back.
Sunil,
I have kept poor photographs with the hope of finding a future opportunity of capturing that special moment or place they represent with my now better camera.
Sunil,
I looked at Palimpsest and immediately fell for it. Did you really destroy it???? It is so radically different from anything of yours that I’ve seen that I’m awestricken.
I find that I often destroy or at least shelve works that I can’t find a way to go through or work further. I can get very frustrated by not knowing what it is that I’m getting at — I can’t evaluate what I’ve done. It isn’t so much a reaction to the quality of the work as it is a reaction to my inability to understand or to further what I’d been doing. Abstract painting is the worst because I can get lost in doing it so easily and if lost, I can’t sort out what to do next. It all goes into a muddle.
June,
Palimpsest was the result of destroying a piece of artwork (of a face) whose end result I was not too happy about.
In this case, my reaction was to the quality of the work and not necessarily my inability to understand the subject matter. I have often had experiences of the latter also.