Do you find that starting a painting or some other creative project is relatively easy to do, working on it difficult but doable, but completing it really difficult? Do you have lots of unfinished creative work around, really far too much? I am currently working on a book about “completing creative work” and I would love to hear from you why you think that completing creative work is so difficult and what tactics, mindsets, or strategies you use to help yourself complete your creative work. I would really love to hear! Please drop me an email to ericmaisel@hotmail.com and let me know your thoughts.
While I don’t have a lot of unfinished projects, I do find completing the work to often be a challenge. It is because of unexpected problems that arise. It seems that often times I am trying to figure out how to “fix” something that is not quite right. A few examples: A mixed media piece done on a 12×12 piece of glass, finished and ready to drop into a frame – except the glass is not cut precisely and does not fit, so now I purchased a diamond bit for my drimmel and am watching UTube tutorials on how to trim glass.
Another- used resin to coat some coasters and other art. Paid very close attention when applying to make sure each piece was evenly coated and the sides were covered only to find some areas when dry were not “perfect.”
When beginning to create all is free flowing and I often end up with something different than what I started out thinking – a pleasant creative journey – until the challenges pop up.
I have done photography many years and these challenges mentioned relate to the mixed media art I also do. Abstract acrylics, alcohol ink and shard art.
Comment *Buen Día, amigo Eric.
Qué gran problema. Efectivamente, tengo frente a mí un potro salvaje que se niega a colaborar; así veo esta lucha interna por ordenar el microcosmos de cada uno de mis trabajos. Ciertamente el trabajo arduo de planificar cada obra, trazar la estrategia de ataque, “lazar al potro”, todo eso es fascinante, pero la etapa final es especialmente amarga porque es cuando las circunstancias parecen retar al autor, echarle en cara su pretendido poder.
Sucede, sobre todo cuando se trata de un trabajo sobre pedido; parece haber una rebeldía interior, quizá derivada de no querer ‘someterse’ a la voluntad creativa de otra persona; aquí recuerdo aquella sentencia radical: “el artista reclama siempre ser protagonista de la vida, no el coprotagonista”.
O quizá sucede que hay un auto sabotaje que viene de no ser merecedor de ganancias.
En fin, si todo consistiera en actuar ‘positivamente’ para conseguir algo, pero en el trabajo artístico aparece con frecuencia la trampa de confundir la inspiración y el pragmatismo.
En esta región del mundo muchas personas construyen riqueza con la industrialización del arte. Celebro el éxito de cualquier persona, sí, me congratulo, qué bien que obtengan buenos resultados, pero celebraría más si se tratara del triunfo de una propuesta artística. Esta simple explicación provoca la tormenta que hace relinchar al potro y correr despavorido.
Al centro de todo está el hambre de armonía del artista, ( y de cualquier ser humano, sobre todo ante una vocación humanista) reflejándose aquí en un hambre de justicia. No es fácil asumirse como productor de bienes de ‘alto valor’ cuando nos rodea la injusticia.
Gracias por este espacio de reflexión, Amigo Eric.
If you’re like me, and have been painting for decades, you have found that your completion time on any given work goes down, and your incremental gains in the quality of your result is less and less. What I mean to point out is that this may be the opposite of when you started painting, (and for me was) in that, your completion time was not noticeably different and yet your quality of results was what first improved most noticeably, with large gains at first and lesser gains which followed. This whole process, which took decades to develop (in my case) set up a bias I wasn’t really aware of at the time. The bias was that I had formed an opinion of how long a work should take, based on its size, composition, and other factors, those of which were more or less controllable. What happened when, based on uncontrollable factors, such as wildfires and an approaching solar eclipse in the case which I am now referring, I was compelled to stay in one location for an extended period of time at a point I had thought my landscape painting was done? Well, I didn’t have a lot I could do but paint and read and pray, so I did that for another week or two. I continued working on a large landscape painting I’d thought was done. The result was surprisingly better than had I stopped at the point I’d thought it was done. Because I was compelled to work on it longer than usual by external factors, not of my own doing or choice, I worked on it and worked on it while solitary camping in a motorhome. You’ve heard of persons who wrote books or letters of the Bible while in prison, composed great music while stranded somewhere, created art while locked up in mental hospitals. These aren’t necessarily bad situations for using one’s native talents, provided you are aware that you have your resources and materials available and don’t slack off. Your best results aren’t always under conditions you impose on yourself. You’ve heard of the Taos art colony starting as the result of a broken wagon wheel? It may be true.
Hi Eric, I’m still at the mid-beginning of believing I’m an artist. I have ideas and images in my head that I get excited about. I’ve learned to think a little more about how to approach before beginning a work rather than just diving in (though I still do that). I find it gets me to a better workable middle and a better chance of a finished effort I’ll be happy with. But I find I stay in that middle forever. About that point, what I have down is clearly not matching my original idea. I struggle with being able to decide if it’s because it’s really become something else and I should surrender to the intuition or is it straying due to an accumulation of bad choices and I should wrestle it back. This is what I call the 2nd fuguly. There’s a first one, but it doesn’t stop me anymore. The 2nd stalls me. The third fuguly is right before the finish and it’s where the realization it doesn’t match my idea of it again and I can’t see the magic in what’s there to take across to finished or I’m really happy with it but know it needs just a few more touches and I’m not sure what and how much is too much.
The closer I am to shipping, the greater the resistance will be. And so, when the finish line is in site, I notice whatever opposes or weakens forward motion. I keep my head down. And remain vigilant in not letting the abundance of feedback chew up valuable time and disrupt my plans.
My old boss was the king of giving last minute feedback the week before launching new products. It drove the designers and developers up the wall, since their work was so labor intensive. They couldn’t just cut and paste a few lines of code, delete a few layers of images, and then hit the publish button. Boss was essentially asking for a page one rewrite at four in the afternoon. And while the team agreed with the accuracy of his feedback and planned on implementing it in the next iteration, we learned to move forward without adopting his changes. He was not thrilled about this. After all, he was the founder of the company. And it took him several months to accept it. But eventually, he came around. Or should I say, he came around less.
Here are my mindset mantras: Build a bias for output. Finished isn’t just better than perfect, it’s better than anything. Get your ass across the finish line, chug some water, and then gear up for the next race.
This tool called “finish lining” helps me:
*Reduce frustration and extra work on creative teams
*Complete projects without excessive delays or derailments
*Overcome resisting to execution in the last stages of projects
*Become less sensitive and influenced by unhelpful feedback