Sometimes you just can’t leave things alone. You pick a little here, a little there, and before you know it, things are out of hand and someone ends up crying.
At least that’s what my mother always claimed.
I’ve always been good about knowing when to move on from a painting and mark it “done.” The time working on it varies, of course, depending on size, subject and more often than not, my interest level, but I’ve always known when it was ready to shelve. Or so I thought…
Cleaning and organizing the storage area in Intramural Studio a few weeks ago, I was faced with an odd (for me) decision. My modus operandi in sorting finished artwork is to create three piles - Available, Studies and Burn. Available are pieces worthy in my estimation of being shown. I may need to clean them up and/or frame them, but other than that, they are ready to hang. Studies are sometimes just that, sketches and preliminaries for more involved work, or sometimes they are less successful pieces that I still want to hold onto for reference or archiving. What’s left gets it’s picture taken for my database, then the panel is recycled (sanded and re-gessoed) or, if it REALLY sucks, burned, or as I like to think of it “released” back into the ether-world of inadequate effort.
This time though, something happened. Maybe it was the phase of the moon, or overthinking brought on by quarantine, or simply because it’s 2020 and what the hell? Anyway, halfway into sorting I had somehow ended up with the beginning of a 4th, unnamed pile. Stuff not worthy of hanging, storing or burning. I was seeing things in them that warranted a second look and just maybe, another round on the easel. Some in this rogue pile were quite old (some even forgotten completely). Perhaps that was why they represented new potential unseen before, or perhaps because it was the last light of Durin’s Day - at any rate, I was seeing them in new light.
The pile became “In Progress” and at the end of the day, there were a good 12 old guys stacked up in the corner next to the easel, looking for a shave and a haircut. Here’s the first, a small piece I completed first in 2014 of a building in Fall River, MA. This is new territory for me, but I found it exhilarating revisiting a painting with new eyes, experience and a different perspective. I’ll continue, I think, and see what it yields. If they suck, I’ll blame the Corona-virus and the Post Office, then I’ll light the match.
Parked Out Front, 12x12, oil on wood panel - Left: 2014, Right: 2020 update