Epiphany

I was working on some paintings today, and I realized that the paintings that don't turn out perfectly, like I had wanted them to, are more interesting than the ones that do. To my eyes, anyway. The perfect ones are nice, but they have a bit of rigidity to them. The imperfect paintings have a life of their own. They won't yield to my will, and they do what they want to do instead of what I want them to do.

The trick is to let go of expectations, and not give up on paintings when they're imperfect -- sometimes hideously imperfect. These are the paintings that challenge me to see things in new ways and to treat them differently than I would my perfect paintings. These are the paintings that are on the cutting edge of my work.

Here are two of today's imperfections. This is just the first few layers of paint -- they aren't done yet.



Compare them to these two more orderly paintings, done in the same colors:



The imperfect paintings seem to have more personality and energy. The bottom diptych has a nice symmetry, but I think the top diptych has more potential.

It occurs to me that the imperfect paintings are a metaphor for life -- that things are more interesting when they don't turn out exactly the way you wanted them to!