Lesson Learned

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
- Andre Gide

The other day I was working at the store with a friend of mine. She had come over so we could work on 8"x8" pieces that we were doing for a local charity thingie. I already had an idea in my head and thought it would be decently easy to complete my piece while also helping her put one together (since she had asked for my help).

So.

I worked and worked and worked on my piece. My friend left. I still worked on my piece. Overworked on my piece, you could say. I finished it all right. Ahem. Within an inch of its life. I kept looking at it, wondering what could be done. I told myself it was for a charity event and it was fine. But it didn't feel fine and I don't like to put out work that I don't like. But there was a deadline and I was in such a quandary with a million things on my calendar.

The substrate was wood panel, the kind that has the indentation in the back where you are supposed to hang it. I turned my piece over and wouldn't you know, I had been working it in the wrong orientation. I said a bad word out loud.

Then I calmly picked up a block of sandpaper and simply demolished it. I gouged it so the collage parts peeled off. I turned to one of my store partners and said "I only have ten more minutes before I have to go......I am going to finish this right now." He nodded.

I dumped collage papers on the table and started randomly grabbing whatever appealed to me. Now keep in mind I am a pretty fast worker, but I was in a frenzy. Literally. It was a good kind of thing, not stressful, almost like time stopped for a few minutes.

Sometimes I just need to get out of my own way.