People ask me where the ideas come from that I write about and I tell them they come mostly from my Art Practice. These thoughts arrive while I am standing in front of my paintings. But they also just come from my life. This makes sense because, as most of you already know, your Art and Life often ride tandem.
In many ways stopping to write drops you directly into the present. This also happens for me when I work on my paintings. Each day is different. And yet somehow they are connected.
I am understanding more and more that this connection of disparate attempts on random different days in the studio is made clearer by actually seeing the accumulation of past art. I think we are most satisfied when we feel we are progressing, when we improve. I look at older paintings and think to myself how could I have gone on with such weak work and not have gotten totally discouraged?
[Tweet “”Your Art and Life Often Ride Tandem.” – Nicholas Wilton”]
But it is all about the progression. I just thank my lucky stars that I am here now and not back there with all that confusion and garish over worked art. Of course I realize this “now” is no different than the “now” back then. I just don’t know that my work today will be that same weaker work of yesterday which will fall dramatically out of my favor in the future. This is a good thing of course, because if I did know what I will know in the future then I would probably hate what I am doing now and most likely would stop.
I never know what I will feel before I drop into my art practice or even what will come up as I start sifting through my thoughts for this weekly blog. I just know that there will be something, some kind of reaction or over riding sentiment that colors my creative experience. And every day it will be different. It always is. I like to think things are getting more refined, but on that point I am not entirely sure.
I am always comforted, however, by the fact that I can see my results. At the end of the day a piece of Art exists. The wonderful thing about making things, whether they are paintings, photographs, sculptures or whatever, is there ends up being a visual record of your time. Your resulting art becomes a placeholder for the progression of time that you have experienced.
As the time is spent and more and more of whatever you make piles up behind you, all that is left to do is ask oneself “Well, am I improving?”
The answer is almost always affirmative. It seems difficult to do anything with even sporadic regularity and find on some level that you are not improving. This, it seems to me, is what keeps most of us coming back for more. It just is so darn amazing that a kind of maturity, a deeper sense of knowing almost naturally develops though repeated attempts. If we show up repeatedly, over time, we improve. And because this is so gratifying it engenders more creativity. Making more allows us to make more.
Understanding this fact is like finding a perfect, unbroken seashell upon a beach. It might even make us stop, just for a minute and really look into our hands at what we have just found. And then, before we begin again, ever so carefully slip it into our pocket so that in the not too distant future, when uncertainty undoubtedly returns, we will remember.
What has your experience been with looking at your past work?
In gratitude, Nicholas
24 Comments
Hi! I’m
Nicholas Wilton
the founder of Art2Life.
With over 20 years experience as a working artist and educator, I’ve developed a systematic approach that brings authenticity, spontaneity and joy back into the creative process.
Join me and artists from all over the world in our Free Art2Life Artists Facebook Group or learn more here about Art2Life.
Sometimes… If I feel good about a piece, if it does endure time… I can find that intimidating! If the work is weak I can charge on knowing I will improve. It’s a weird catch 22! I agree with you, that one just has to keep showing up…no matter what!
OH wow, yes … I love that saying, don’t wish too hard it just might come true!–Like making something great that you love you would think would bolster confidence, not the other way around–I get that though…
Sometimes… If I feel good about a piece, if it does endure time… I can find that intimidating! If the work is weak I can charge on knowing I will improve. It’s a weird catch 22! I agree with you, that one just has to keep showing up…no matter what!
OH wow, yes … I love that saying, don’t wish too hard it just might come true!–Like making something great that you love you would think would bolster confidence, not the other way around–I get that though…
Sometimes I develop(add) a layer of say…of a particular design form or paper cutting or cloth and then I get so much into it that I even apply those in my older works also like i have got an invention lolz, but many times I just fail cause its difficult to mix new things to the past, but few times its a real new experience just like we use memory in the present.
I sometimes take older work and try to upgrade it but I never can do i t without obliterating the whole painting–so basically it becomes a new painting!
Sometimes I develop(add) a layer of say…of a particular design form or paper cutting or cloth and then I get so much into it that I even apply those in my older works also like i have got an invention lolz, but many times I just fail cause its difficult to mix new things to the past, but few times its a real new experience just like we use memory in the present.
I sometimes take older work and try to upgrade it but I never can do i t without obliterating the whole painting–so basically it becomes a new painting!
Great article, and good advice to look back at older pieces to see your evolution.
Thanks Johnny…
Great article, and good advice to look back at older pieces to see your evolution.
Thanks Johnny…
Always I find you speak to the very topics and questions I mull over now and again. I, too, look at my early work and shudder. But I take similar solace in realizing it is a progression and were the work ever to be ‘perfect,’ then that would be the day I would quit. I know I will never quit….I often joke I will die at my bench…there is no retirement, there is no end-point.
Hey I totally agree with you. I like the word shudder you use…I was trying to think of a way to describe that feeling but you got the right word. What kind of
work do you do?
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment. Seeing a post from you in my IN box always brightens my day as your musings consistently resonate with me. I am a bag maker in Southern California.
Always I find you speak to the very topics and questions I mull over now and again. I, too, look at my early work and shudder. But I take similar solace in realizing it is a progression and were the work ever to be ‘perfect,’ then that would be the day I would quit. I know I will never quit….I often joke I will die at my bench…there is no retirement, there is no end-point.
Hey I totally agree with you. I like the word shudder you use…I was trying to think of a way to describe that feeling but you got the right word. What kind of
work do you do?
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment. Seeing a post from you in my IN box always brightens my day as your musings consistently resonate with me. I am a bag maker in Southern California.
Very recently I was in a workshop where I was encouraged to declare a painting “finished” and to move on. “You have more to do, Jim.” Various artists looked at the painting and offered their expertise. Some said it was finished and some said it was not. And then the philosopher said “I think it is finished. It is finished and maybe also unfinished.” That makes sense to me. That work of art stands somewhere in a line of progression – actually at the very beginning of a series of non-objective abstracts. 100 paintings later that painting may fit into the body of work as being clearly finished because it represents some particular stage in the creative process. It represents a beginning – but it is also possible that when seen in context with the other paintings it will be clearly “unfinished” and in need of work. In retrospect, I think that the advice to declare the painting finished was spot on otherwise I’d not have been able to “move on” or “to progress.” Had I stopped in my tracks and continued to mess with this painting i would have lost what it was – lost the early stages of a progression. “You have more to do, Jim. Put that one under the table and get busy painting more,” was sage advice from my mentor.
That painting, which is “current” work will one day be early work (hopefully) – and hopefully at the end of the series I’ll be able to see a progression. How I might see it as “improvement” is an interesting question. In what ways will later works be an improvement over the very first?
I tend to see my earlier work as necessary steps in progression, whether I hit the mark or missed completely. Our work changes because we change. And we see the paintings differently because we are different now that we’ve painted them.
Very good point. It is like the work is perfect for that time…and of course it doesn’t fit later because we are different and in needs of doing and being different too. I like that phrase ” You have more to do Jim” there is this hint of pending importance of what is to come..I remember a gallerist who rejected my work, but she said I believe there is much better things coming from you and I think I will wait for those. That was quite powerful.
Very recently I was in a workshop where I was encouraged to declare a painting “finished” and to move on. “You have more to do, Jim.” Various artists looked at the painting and offered their expertise. Some said it was finished and some said it was not. And then the philosopher said “I think it is finished. It is finished and maybe also unfinished.” That makes sense to me. That work of art stands somewhere in a line of progression – actually at the very beginning of a series of non-objective abstracts. 100 paintings later that painting may fit into the body of work as being clearly finished because it represents some particular stage in the creative process. It represents a beginning – but it is also possible that when seen in context with the other paintings it will be clearly “unfinished” and in need of work. In retrospect, I think that the advice to declare the painting finished was spot on otherwise I’d not have been able to “move on” or “to progress.” Had I stopped in my tracks and continued to mess with this painting i would have lost what it was – lost the early stages of a progression. “You have more to do, Jim. Put that one under the table and get busy painting more,” was sage advice from my mentor.
That painting, which is “current” work will one day be early work (hopefully) – and hopefully at the end of the series I’ll be able to see a progression. How I might see it as “improvement” is an interesting question. In what ways will later works be an improvement over the very first?
I tend to see my earlier work as necessary steps in progression, whether I hit the mark or missed completely. Our work changes because we change. And we see the paintings differently because we are different now that we’ve painted them.
Very good point. It is like the work is perfect for that time…and of course it doesn’t fit later because we are different and in needs of doing and being different too. I like that phrase ” You have more to do Jim” there is this hint of pending importance of what is to come..I remember a gallerist who rejected my work, but she said I believe there is much better things coming from you and I think I will wait for those. That was quite powerful.
I really like the idea of asking myself, am I improving? I asked this recently of myself, and then I noticed that the bird I sketched in the field (through binoculars) last January (in the icy snow and wind of Upstate NY) had a bump on the head that did not belong there. A month later or so (still icy snow and wind!), I sketched that same bird (Red-headed duck) in the field, and I was amazed how much it had changed in terms of shape, color, texture! I had been sketching many, many other bird species in the field in the meantime; and I strive to capture the bird’s essence rather than scientifically accuracy. With this focus, I think I am accessing something that is uniquely me, and I regularly find people and professional artists gasp with delight when they see my sketches. This evolution has been really fun, and I gauge my evolution as an artist by not only how I feel about the quality of my work but the reaction I see in others. Maybe I should not care about the reaction of others, but I want to inspire stewardship; so it matters to me. Thank you for your post.
I really like the idea of asking myself, am I improving? I asked this recently of myself, and then I noticed that the bird I sketched in the field (through binoculars) last January (in the icy snow and wind of Upstate NY) had a bump on the head that did not belong there. A month later or so (still icy snow and wind!), I sketched that same bird (Red-headed duck) in the field, and I was amazed how much it had changed in terms of shape, color, texture! I had been sketching many, many other bird species in the field in the meantime; and I strive to capture the bird’s essence rather than scientifically accuracy. With this focus, I think I am accessing something that is uniquely me, and I regularly find people and professional artists gasp with delight when they see my sketches. This evolution has been really fun, and I gauge my evolution as an artist by not only how I feel about the quality of my work but the reaction I see in others. Maybe I should not care about the reaction of others, but I want to inspire stewardship; so it matters to me. Thank you for your post.