Well that’s rich! I have spent 15 years daily telling people to finish their work. “ Stop the chatter, you won’t finish in time…” “We’re finishing this next lesson…” “Are you finished yet?” “It’s time to finish…. Put your finished work on this table…. Take your work home and finish it….” Seemed to be quite the obsession when I was teaching in schools.
Now that I’m working as an Artist I know it’s important to finish my work, I have deadlines with Galleries to meet and if I don’t get the work on the wall the chances of making any moulah are almost nil. Well, actually completely NIL. It’s important to finish.
Unfinished work
BUT, the more I know about my practice the more I realise it’s important not to THINK about finishing while I’m painting, and actually to defer finishing for as long as I can.
When I started on the abstract journey of making Abstract Art this wasn’t a problem. It took FOREVER to finish my work. Going round and round in circles, liking it one day, not liking it the next. Cheering the completion of a work, then days later splattering more paint on and knocking it back into the middle ages or stages because it had fallen out of favour.
I would look on a ‘finished’ painting with suspicion as it was such a rarity that one of my paintings should be considered done. You’re not finished!! You can’t be… are you?
Finally when it had undergone the hours of smothering, scoring, sanding, rotating, tweaking, scrutinizing, and all the other ‘ings’ I would inflict on my work, it would emerge laden thick with paint, collage and whatever else I could scrape off the studio floor. I would stare at it with amazement that I had managed to bring this one home. I actually liked it, even loved it.
I loved the history of all those decisions made and unmade along its journey. Little glimpses of iterations that weren’t quite what I was looking for (whatever that was) but that led it to it’s final finished form. There’s a richness that only that tortuous journey could provide. It’s the secret that only the work and I know about.
I didn’t set out to create that rich layered textured surface it would happen as a result of my indecision. That, and my dogged persistence that I would see it through to the end no matter how many times I painted over parts.
Now though, I know better about what I like and what I’m trying to produce. I have more clarity about my process and what I do to produce the work I want. I can get there without the indecision most of the time. 3 layers and I could be happy.
But where is my rich surface texture? Where is the history? Where is the story to the painting – all those salacious little secrets that only it and I know about?
This is why it’s SO important not to think about finishing, at least for a good loooong while. If I’m starting to see the end point in the early stages of a painting now, instead of leaping for joy and high fiving myself – I know, that’s sad - I purposefully muck something up to prolong the journey.
I’m currently working on 4 large paintings where I have had to do exactly this. My initial nervousness about painting on this scale (1m x 1m and 1m x 1.4m) was soon overcome with relief as I have loved the size and very quickly could see the final painting emerge. Apart from one painting which is dragging it’s heels, the others are almost done. But the more I have gone in and remained in the middle stages the better they have become. I can see that the difficult one has its’ merits purely because of the wrangling we’ve been through. We have a few secrets… it and I.
When you’re confident in your process, shilly shallying in the middle stages in order to put off finishing is very different from hanging out going round and round in circles and being uncertain of ever reaching an endpoint. However, as long as you reach the end point the outcome is the same. You finish.
How often are you asked “How long does it take to finish your paintings?” It’s totally irrelevant how long it takes. What is important is that you DO finish and you enjoy the process.
If your process is long and the journey of your paintings is more of a marathon – congratulations!! You are building history, creating stories and secrets and most likely producing work that is rich in texture and surface.
Most budding artists are fixated with the outcome and forgo much in the process of getting there. Stay in the process, take your eye OFF the finish line and you’ll find the outcome will take care of itself. Then you will eye it with wonder (and maybe a little suspicion… you can’t be, can you,… are you actually finished?) BUT you will LOVE it – there will be time embedded in the surface and when you stroke it with your hand you’ll feel the history of its journey and touch the secrets of its past.
“I needed to learn about layering and texture and just the idea of meandering through a process instead of trying to find my way to the ending I’d had in mind. And really, what’s better than a surprise at the end, something totally unimagined.”
This is what Kim said after she had taken my stARTs course. stARTs is all about showing you how to work with a process that doesn’t fixate on the outcome, but lingers in the middle and builds a painting in layers.
To find out more about stARTs go here