pruning

One of the most difficult things, I think, in the maturing of an artist is the ability to edit well. I'm very much in process with this. My husband has an architect's precision when it comes to cohesiveness and clarity, which helps me with the honest cutting of paintings that just don't fit into a body of work. In the world of a writer or composer or any other maker, so much work goes into the waste bin before the final piece can be finished. I've heard writers talk about the way that they might feel very precious about a particular set of paragraphs, so they live with them for a long time before finally giving them up, to the betterment of the piece as a whole. And DVD extras are full of directors lamenting how much they liked a particular scene, but knew that it didn't belong in the film. In the past, I've put all of my eggs in the basket of each show-- including, in some cases, wildly different paintings. Part of this is that I was just not making enough work. It's my goal to continue to work so that I have the luxury of editing to get the best ensemble. I will always wing off on tangents-- it's my exploratory, intuitive method-- but sometimes the wings enrich the direction, and other times, they're off course. The piece above, for example, is in question. I've used actual animals in recent work, but none as fantasy-based... I've used geometry, but not this type of decorative plating... the work is in the same material as other pieces, but the handling is different. I like it well enough, though. Maybe the blog is my version of DVD extras.