How do I know when a painting is done?
Abstract painting is a journey of trust.
I finished three more paintings this week.
Or at least, I stopped making them… covered them over with a final coat of gel medium and cold wax… I took photos of them… I told a potential collector I can bring them by for viewing. I won’t change them any more now; but I’m not really ever sure they’re done. Finished.
Abstract painting is a journey in a wilderness with no path.
My current series of work, Inner Architecture, is a study in form. I know when I begin to paint that eventually I’ll begin to create variations of this form and those variations will become the anchor for the composition. I know that I’ll experiment with the colours, layer after layer, some will be intentional and others will be fixing what isn’t working for me. I know that I’ll draw into the paint with oil pastels, I know that I’ll paint over the markings, and scrap paint back off to find them again. Each painting that I’ve made has been a walk into uncharted space: a blank birch panel onto which I apply color and forms until something inside my soul has come outside of it, into the painting.
Abstract painting is a trail blazed for another to follow.
There comes a point in each painting when I’ve placed down all of the creative footprints that I can. Now it’s time for someone else to follow, and I think that my trail can take you to a destination that will enliven you.
Abstract painting is a transfer of energy from me, to you.
I was intrigued by an Instagram post from Seattle artist Marjorie Thompson this past week. She wrote “To finish a painting I want to achieve a certain refinement. I’m the only one who knows what that means, and honestly I really don’t know what is I’m looking for. But I do know that I keep going until I feel that I’ve come to the place where it feels right…an intersection… of interest, design/composition, and color harmony. Do you have words to describe refinement in your art?”
I do. In my work, as I replied to Marjorie’s question, “…it’s a sense that, to do anything else would begin to smother the energy of it. That’s how it feels for me when I reach the point of calling something finished.”
Truthfully, I could keep painting, keep refining and changing and adjusting for an eternity on a single painting. A journey with no path can be an invitation to wander forever. But within each painting lies the energy that first brought hand to brush, brush to pigment, pigment to board. The first rush of creation: ideas flowing from within to without. To bring it to a finish, I must sense that it’s a path you can follow, that the vista is one you’ll enjoy along with me. That my energy in creating it is present to energize you when you look at it.
Washington DC based artist creating abstract paintings for home and office, interior design, and home staging. All work is for sale by the artist unless otherwise noted.