A Numbers Game

It's that time of the year again, when I clean out my studio for the Holiday Open House. This is without doubt the most thorough cleaning that my studio gets all year! The first step is to put away all of my scraps of fabric and still life props (see below). These things have a tendency to multiply--I rationalize that I never know when I might need a certain color, or certain size object, to complete a composition! The next (and hardest) step is to select a group of paintings to show at the event--and to store the rest of the paintings out of sight. The idea is to create a well-curated display, and to eliminate distracting clutter.

Because my storage space is limited, this is a good time to purge a few paintings that just never made the mark. Some of the paintngs are old ones, that I have held for years. They often have a small passage that I really love, which keeps me from throwing them away. I have harbored the hope that the rest of the canvas could be brought up to snuff. Alas, that hope is almost never fulfilled So out they go.

I am not alone in destroying old work. You can read about some creative approaches to destruction here. Sometimes when I look at the discarded canvases, I lament the wasted effort. I feel frustrated that I could not make the paintings "work". But I remind myself of the  very wise words that I read in the book Art & Fear. The authors wrote, "The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars." They noted that even the failed paintings are essential. I might say that ESPECIALLY the failed paintings are essential. Why? Because in one's failures lie the lessons that lead to future successes. 

I think of this as another version of the 80/20 rule: Eighty percent of your work serves as a foundation for the other twenty percent that really soars. Or in the words of an esteemed painter friend, "Some days we produce; other days we learn." And so we carry on...