How important is it to you to finish most, if not all, the projects you start? And how do you know when it’s “done”?
Brett Varon joins me for an adventurous chat on the subject of finishing art pieces. As it turns out, you don’t need to! Not necessarily. But if you want help finishing more work, we have a myriad of ways to accomplish that. We’ll explore the purpose of completing your work, why and when you might be better off leaving things incomplete, the fascinating world of non-finito, and our own transformed opinions and thoughts on a subject we both struggle with, but for very different reasons.
Other Resources mentioned:
Matt Fussel: https://thevirtualinstructor.com/aboutme.html
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CREDITS:
Cover design by Sage; Illustration by Olga Kostenko
Episode Illustration by Brett Varon
Music by Playsound
For Transcript click on the episode here: https://rss.com/podcasts/thesagearts/
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Transcript
Transcription (AI transcribed, unedited. Please excuse the copious errors.)
SAGE-0:00
Matthew. So he wrote about overworking your art is that we know that we need to stop at the peak, but we don’t know where we are on the mountain. But it’s such a good metaphor for our work. You never know when it’s really done.
Hello, all you fabulous creative works in progress. Thank you for joining me on the Sage Arts podcast. This is Sage and I am in the studio today with Brett.
BRETT-0:26
Brett Hi, how’s it going?
SAGE-0:28
We are in the studio together today because we’re going to talk about a subject that we’ve actually talked about, I’d say quite a lot in the last few years, but we didn’t really put a name to it and we want to talk about finishing your work because Brett are kind of opposite on our, I don’t know, philosophies or how we approach it. I finish everything. I finish things I shouldn’t finish. Like I’ll start fixing something and realize that this really is either impossible to fix or isn’t worth fixing.
BRETT-1:00
You’re an over finished and.
SAGE-1:01
I’m still trying to do it. Yes, I’m ridiculous. And then Brett has this thing about he gets to, you know, like a point and then he’s like, I’m good.
BRETT-1:09
Yeah, I like to explore, I guess, and, and just follow that impulse until the impulse sort of peters out. And then to go back to it isn’t as I want to go to the next thing and do another thing like that.
SAGE-1:22
So we’re kind of like extremes on the whole finishing thing. And I don’t know that either of us are at a place that is really as productive as it should be for us. So we thought we would talk about our experiences with finishing, not finishing, what that means, our philosophies behind it. And I did a lot of research about the idea of finishing artwork, whether you need to finish your artwork or not, what unfinished artwork can do, because actually there’s a whole thing about unfinished artwork out there. We’ll talk about that. So but before we get into subject matter, I need to do a few shadows. First of all, Coda on Instagram. Thank you so much for creating that story on the Fear episode. I really appreciate you sharing that. I think you’ve been cheering me on since like maybe the very beginning. So thank you so much for being there for me. And of course, you all can share anything that I put out about the podcast. I mean, if there’s episodes that are speaking to you, just think there are probably others out there who would love to hear the same stuff, right? So share whatever, whenever, wherever. And thank you Kota, for doing that. Then a big thank you to all of you who have continuously been contributing and commenting, especially Wendy and Becky and Julie and Carl and Trey. Thank you all so much for your support, your encouragement, and especially the feedback with detailed information about things I could do better. I so much appreciate that. It really helps me out in terms of determining the direction of the things that I do here. So if any of you who haven’t yet commented would like to please, please, please do, I love hearing from you. It really does help me. So you can go to the contact page at the Sage Arts dot com. You can go to Instagram or Facebook and go to the Sage Arts podcast accounts and send me either messages or comment on the posts there. And of course, if you do get a lot out of the podcast and you’re able to give back, you can do so by going to those sage arts dot com and go about halfway down the home page and you’ll find a buy me a coffee button or the PayPal button which has recurring donations if you’d like to do that. And all of these links are also available in the show notes. If you’re listening to this on a podcast player. With that said, let’s get back to the conversation. So let’s talk about this finishing thing. First of all, I want to put this out there because I don’t want anyone to think we are talking about how to manage to finish all your work because honestly, you don’t need to finish all your work. There’s nothing out there that says that finishing your work is imperative and truthfully, unfinished work is part of being an artist. If you don’t have unfinished work, you are probably not doing the kind of exploration that is really pushing you, pushing your ideas and getting you to a place where you’re exploring really new and usually very motivating things because deep exploration, it comes with disappointments, it comes with wrong turn. So sometimes you’re just why waste my time finishing after you’ve learned what you needed to and you’re going to have unfinished work. So keep that in mind. This is not about you having to finish your work, but about figuring out when you need to finish your work and what that means for you. And choosing your ideal in terms of finishing. So I wanted to also start out with the opposing view, kind of what does finishing do for you? So some of the basic things I’m sure you could add to this list is that finishing is a natural part of the creative process. You start to make something. I think most of us start with the idea of finishing what we’re going to do. Of course, if you just plain and completely stream of consciousness kind of plane, you may not think you’re going to finish anything. But normally if you’re making a particular piece, something that you’ve designed and worked out, you plan to finish it. And so getting to that end is a goal, usually a fulfilling part of your practice. You also practice completing things. So actually finishing, even if you don’t end up liking what you end up with, it takes you to the end of a journey that is improving your skills and is teaching you something about you and what you do with your artwork. Finishing also. And this is an interesting note I got from some of the things I was reading. Finishing enables the work to exist without you, and I think for some people that is really important that the work goes on to kind of have its own life. And I think that’s been true for a lot of my pieces, especially if you look back at pieces that you made years and years ago. It’s like its own entity has.
BRETT-5:38
Its own spirit to it.
SAGE-5:39
Yeah, right. Yeah. So the finishing also allows the work to do that. And of course if you sell it and it goes off and has a life with other people and of course it has a life of its own, finishing is also kind of an empowering thing because once you’ve finished you can step back, look of what you’ve done, evaluate the areas that you want to focus more on or want to focus less on or areas to improve. So you have opportunities in the finished work to evaluate yourself. And of course if you have finished work then you have something to sell, which is something that can help finance the costs of your materials or even put food on the table, whatever. So it obviously gives you the opportunity to sell and selling is, you know, affirming, right?
BRETT-6:21
You get a certain acceptance from it, a certain validation of the process and the value there that feels really good and feels really good.
SAGE-6:28
Yeah, absolutely. So and then of course, and I think this is kind of pinnacle for me that once it’s finished, you have opportunities to share a completed idea with other people and communicate with other people and connect with other people through your work.
BRETT-6:42
Yeah, Yeah. An opportunity to show what you do and, and get feedback or response.
SAGE-6:48
Yeah. We make our work with the idea that there’s something that we want to express and something that we want to communicate. Now, some people say they make it without the intention of communicating. Sometimes you’re just communicating to yourself, but the finished piece is usually a complete idea and therefore you can communicate with other people with your self, you know, reminders that you have around the house kind of thing. But in a case, these are the kind of things that finishing can do for you and the reasons that some of the reasons we finished is probably more than that. So if you want to add to that, if you want to write me with your other thoughts, I would love to hear that. But why are we talking about finishing?
BRETT-7:21
Yeah, I’m really interested in this topic. You are true.
SAGE-7:24
And we’re talking about it because thinking.
BRETT-7:26
About it a lot.
SAGE-7:26
It’s often a struggle. A lot of people struggle with finishing work and there’s a lot of guilt around it. Or, you know, there’s it’s people feel is problematic. We feel bad if we don’t finish something either because we’ve wasted material or we’re down on ourselves because we weren’t able to accomplish what we were after or.
BRETT-7:45
Grasping at.
SAGE-7:46
Results. Yeah, that doesn’t feel good when you don’t get there. Yeah, but you got to remember, first of all, if you’re not finishing stuff, but you actually have done the work, you’ve done the work, you’ve gone through a process and if you find joy in the creative process, then that’s going to be part of what you’ve gotten out of it. Even if you didn’t get to that finished piece that you thought you would, if.
BRETT-8:05
You’ve exercised that function, that that desire to do. Yeah, to create.
SAGE-8:10
Yeah. So some of the things that we struggle with why let’s get more specific, why do we struggle with finishing? I think one of the big things for a lot of people is we don’t finish because there is a fear of imperfection, of failing. So if you never finish it, if you never get to that end, then you never have to see if you don’t confess.
BRETT-8:31
Right? That’s a crafty one.
SAGE-8:33
Yeah, but we do that. We’re like, Oh, I’ll work on that later.
BRETT-8:36
It’s just not finished yet. So, you know, Sure.
SAGE-8:38
Because then you never have to say you failed. Yeah. If you just never finish.
BRETT-8:41
I think. I don’t know. A lot of artists are the hardest on themselves, so if you, you know, if you don’t finish it, then it’s like a it’s like a little escape hatch.
SAGE-8:49
So yeah, it’s something that you can just kind of put off the whole like, Yeah, judging the judgment of it. Yeah. You know, a finished piece.
BRETT-8:56
So judgment from ourselves or from anyone else.
SAGE-8:58
Yeah. And if you want to hear more about getting over that, I would suggest going to the perfection episode. If you haven’t already listened to that episode 18 on Perfectionism, where we go through a lot of that, the fear factor. So we also struggle with finishing because we don’t prioritize our work, especially if we’ve been taught or have people around us that don’t value it, that just think of our work like let’s say we have a day job and we have a family. So those things, for most people that’s the priority. You’ve got to go to your job, your job, you got to take care of your family. And I don’t disagree with it. I just don’t think for many people that the artwork is of less value. So if your creative time is super important to you, you need to tell the people around you. You need to tell yourself if you’re told like, you know, like when I went to art school, my dad was like, Well, what are you going to do for career? How are you going to make money? And so you’ve got this whole idea that like, Oh, I have to make money, do my artwork, and I make money around art, but I don’t make money from my artwork right now, but I still do it. So I have found value in it differently than just the monetary. But a lot of people, if you’re not doing it for money, they don’t think it’s important. But I think your experience is is important and your going through the process is just, you know, satisfying and a big part of your life.
BRETT-10:15
Right? I was lucky I never had that. And it was just I just got encouraged to draw and do whatever I did. It was never about money. And then I just sort of pursued what made sense when it came.
SAGE-10:25
Yeah, Yeah. So if there’s problems with prioritizing it, we may not finish work because of that, because we simply don’t have the time for it. I think it’s also a huge thing and this is probably big for a lot of people. We also prefer the new and exciting stuff versus the kind of established and familiar stuff. So if there’s a project that you’ve been working on for a while, you might get a little bored with it, especially if there’s a lot of repetitive items that have to be made and you may think of something new and then you just want to go do the new stuff.
BRETT-10:51
Yeah, I guess to keep moving forward.
SAGE-10:53
Yeah.
BRETT-10:54
Yeah. And to go back into something isn’t as exciting, but the idea would have to really draw me in. Yeah. To, to do it. And I have had stuff like that. It’s not like I haven’t finished anything, but I’ve finished a lot of stuff.
SAGE-11:04
It just finish. Yeah.
BRETT-11:06
I think.
SAGE-11:07
Does it. But it’s.
BRETT-11:08
It’s, that’s the multilayered thing we can talk about.
SAGE-11:10
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So if we can’t see each bit of progression as an exciting new revealed and oftentimes we just set that piece aside for the next new and exciting things and then we end up with unfinished work. Finishing also means editing, and some people do have issue with working back into something that’s their initial expression. Initially what they put on paper. I know this is a huge problem for a lot of writers, especially like poets. They write down the poem and then they think that’s it. You can’t go and change it. It’s just is what it is.
BRETT-11:43
It’s in its truest form. Coming out of your like in that book. Exactly. I mean, I feel that, you know, I get it.
SAGE-11:49
I know you do that with a lot of or you have with a lot of your sketches. And you know, he sketches. I know every day. I don’t know all the time. I don’t know. His hands are always moving.
BRETT-11:58
At 10:00, 11:00 and 12:00.
SAGE-12:01
You don’t know what he goes.
BRETT-12:02
On the hour every hour. I’m just kidding.
SAGE-12:04
You don’t know what he goes through. Like is sitting here in this podcast room not being able to sketch like, the first time. I’m like, you can’t you can’t bring that pencil in here.
BRETT-12:13
Because it just makes it does make noise.
SAGE-12:16
It makes me. But in any case, like he draws nonstop. But for him, whatever pours out because he does a lot of stream of consciousness stuff. Yeah, it might be what it is.
BRETT-12:25
Yeah. Personally and with my professional work, there’s a lot of structure and a lot of editing and a lot of going over again and again to make the best thing. And I love and respect that process too. But what I think when I come home and do my own things, you know, there’s a little bit of that need to run free in the fields. Yeah.
SAGE-12:42
So we’ve ended up with these conversations where I’m like, Oh, this is a really great piece. You should work in the color here. You could do this or that. And I talk in terms of critiquing work for improvement because it’s what I’ve done, like most of my life as an editor or a teacher, and it’s hard not to talk about. Yeah. And polishing and improving.
BRETT-13:01
What a great resource for me that you can look at my stuff. But as soon as I say I’m not going to listen to like my are not going to.
SAGE-13:07
Do that, it’s like, this isn’t what I do. I mean, I know we’ve discussed your work in terms of the comics that you do and the little sketches that you do in the mornings and things that you’re like, I just want to put down that initial, like movement and expression.
BRETT-13:23
Like a feeling of something or.
SAGE-13:24
Of what you’re drawing, and then you don’t want to go back in there and redo.
BRETT-13:27
It. Well, because it’s a record of that moment and that feels right.
SAGE-13:30
And it is.
BRETT-13:31
And literally is. But to go back into it and make a shape a little bit more appealing or this or that, it it evolves it into a more, like you said, an edited version of it. And I guess I like the unedited purity. Yeah. Or at least in my mind, the concept of purity. Right. Right. Is is there.
SAGE-13:49
And I’m not saying that’s not valid. So I don’t really understand if that’s what you do and that’s what makes you happy and it fulfills what you need. And we’re going to talk about trying to like Judge whether you need to finish work or not. But if that’s what you want, that’s fine. Then it’s finished enough for you. But for a lot of people, once they put that first thing down, they have a really hard time going back into it. And so that’s another reason that people don’t don’t finish the work. And then there’s also and this is kind of like the opposite end of things. We don’t know when a piece is done. I think that’s a big thing for a lot of people. They never feel like it’s finished. So it’s not that it’s not necessarily finished. We don’t feel like it’s finished because we haven’t perfected it. So again, the perfection issue is kind of, you know, dovetailing off of that one. But so those are some of the struggles that we have with finishing work. But let’s talk about judging finished work. I think, you know, if you feel guilty about having unfinished work, first of all, stop. Don’t feel guilty about it. If you enjoy the process, if you keep returning to the work, if you value the experience, you are accomplishing a primary objective that’s valid outside of finishing the work and that’s experiencing the act of creating. So you’re feeding your soul, you’re tending your muse, you’re adding joy and meaning to your life and by extension, to the world around you. So if you don’t finish it, don’t feel guilty, it’s fine. But you might want to spend some time delving into why you create to find out if finishing is particularly important to you. I’m talking about like journaling or talking with friends and family or therapists or whatever. You can also read books about art and make notes of observations that strike you, but get to know yourself and why you create, because that’s going to tell you more about how important finishing is. And then once you understand why you create, you can ask yourself what you need from your art. I’m me give you three points that can kind of guide you. So if you create really just for the experience, then you really don’t have to worry about finishing. If you just want to create stuff, you just want to make things. And whether done or not, you sell it or not give it away or not. That’s all irrelevant then don’t worry about the finishing too much unless there’s something that you’ve set as a personal goal and that’s your choice. But you don’t have to write if you want to share it, though, you need to ask yourself, Do you feel okay sharing incomplete work? Do you still feel fulfilled? If it’s incomplete and you show people what you have done and is that good enough for you? And then of course, if you want to or need to sell your work, what portion of your work needs to be complete in order that you do that in a way that makes sense for you? So I think if you kind of judge by maybe one of those three things about finishing, you can judge how important finishing is going to be for your process. If finishing turns out to be important, you then start working on ways to make that happen to the extent that you need to. Now, I know Brett and I create because that’s who we are. I don’t think we even question why we create too much, but I think we’ve thought about it. So, you know. Brett, what do you think about in terms of why you create?
BRETT-16:58
And there’s a lot of reasons I feel like I create. Mostly it’s the act of letting go and losing myself in the work and it being a reprieve from the normal things in life, the everyday things. So I like that. I never know what’s going to come out. I enjoy the excitement of like some work and some don’t, or some it appealed to me for some reason and others others don’t. As much thing that I really like. Sometimes people are like, Oh.
SAGE-17:24
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BRETT-17:25
And, and vice versa, you know? Yeah. So just listening to the things you’re talking about with, about the different reasons why we create, there’s different ways I create different things I do all the time that I get different things out of. So I guess I have a broad range and it’s hard to say. It’s just one thing.
SAGE-17:42
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, let’s go through a quick list of ways to encourage finishing. So if it’s something that you do want to do, if that’s an objective of yours.
BRETT-17:51
Yeah, there’s certain things I would like to finish more of. That’s that is a goal. So I think it’s something worth talking.
SAGE-17:57
All right, I’ll just tell you about.
BRETT-17:58
It. So. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, let’s hear it. So these are the things that you tell us? Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
SAGE-18:06
Cause everyone listen. Listen to my wisdom. So, for one, if you’re having problems finishing because your projects are so big and either they are discouraging because they’re so big or you just don’t have the time go smaller goals.
BRETT-18:21
Tiny That’s a really good idea. So yeah.
SAGE-18:23
Megan Skelton, who I interviewed on episode 21, the one about community she originally, when she started, found a set of three by five like art paper cards, and she just started doing these like three inch by five inch little painting.
BRETT-18:38
That’s cool.
SAGE-18:38
And it’s like she’s just like, I don’t know what it was about. It’s just like, is so easily contained. And I just thought, Oh, that’s great. It’s doing real tiny stuff.
BRETT-18:46
Post-its. I would start, you know, I always drew on Post-its for my work, but also at home a bit. But they’re perfect size for for doing something small and finish double.
SAGE-18:56
Yeah. Things that you can do in like 30 minutes or 15 minutes or whatnot. And the thing is, is you can do a bunch of small stuff, even if it’s not kind of like the end goal of what you want to be creating your finish.
BRETT-19:07
You feel a sense of finishing every everything.
SAGE-19:09
You feel like we have a place, we have.
BRETT-19:10
A big bag of rice in the in the in the closet, so I can like, start doing it on rice.
SAGE-19:16
That’s something. Where are you going to go. Well then that.
BRETT-19:17
Really it’s really it’s yeah, it’s really start.
SAGE-19:20
Painting. How long would it take the rice.
BRETT-19:22
Yeah. How long would it take.
SAGE-19:23
To get a long time. Because you need a magnifying glass. You need this one here.
BRETT-19:27
So I guess I took it too far. You actually know the process of how to how people do actually on a piece of rice. Oh, yeah.
SAGE-19:34
I should be able to do that. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. So you can also finish by enforcing a commitment to finishing your work through some kind of accountability, you can tell your family, your friends, you can post on social media that you plan to have such and such done by the end of the week, end of the month. The other thing you can do, if you’re not really into kind of broadcasting it is write it down and post it. And I’ve probably said this before, but when you write things down and it becomes tangible, we feel more committed to the things that we’ve written down. And then of course, you post it and you’re seeing it every day. So this I’m going to finish this piece by the end of the week or I’m going to finish this one part of the piece by the end of the week. That should help encourage you to finish the work. You can also work on multiple pieces, but a limited number of pieces. So working on more than one thing at a time is good. But don’t just have an endless amount because that still is like the procrastination. No, I’m not going to finish this yet because then I won’t know if I failed. So you have like three pieces or five pieces. It depends on what kind of work you’re doing, but you have those coins. So if you feel kind of lost or bored or frustrated with a piece, you can just move on to another piece and put it away and putting things away is such a fantastic thing to do for so many reasons, to be able to come back to your work and see it with a fresh eye. So if there’s something that you’re working on and you don’t know what’s going, I don’t know what’s wrong and you put it away and you come back, you can oftentimes see it because you’re not as close as you were to it.
BRETT-21:03
You know? Yeah, yeah, I remember that experience from life drawing. I would never look at what I did because I was exciting to see, like whether it’s your improvement or the feeling in the drawing and the experience. But I would always put them away and not look at them ever till the next day. Oh yeah, the next day or.
SAGE-21:18
The next week.
BRETT-21:19
Or whatever. But then I look at them and then I start to see them objectively. Yeah.
SAGE-21:23
So if you have multiple pieces going, you can continue to work, you can continue to have those experiences or continue to make things you need to sell, but be able to put things aside for small amounts of time and come back to with a fresh eye and then try to work on your art in a place that you don’t do anything else. And so we have a tendency to associate a place with particular tasks. It’s one of the reasons why you’ve probably heard you shouldn’t do anything in bed but sleep and, you know, intimate time. So if you have a place where you do your art, try to make it a place that you only do art. So when you sit in that space, your mind in your body kind of knows what’s going on and you’re more easily going to get into the work. And if you can get into the work, you’re more likely to finish things right. You can also do that with the time like working at the same time of day. And I know a lot of people, especially artists, are like, I don’t want structure. I just want to, you know, work. When my muse strikes me and I have a quote there, I actually had this Post-it above my writing desk. William Faulkner said, I only write with inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes at nine every morning. And I think that’s so great because honestly, inspiration the muse is not some entity outside of yourself. It’s your imagination. It is you. And you can call up your imagination whenever you want. There are times when it’s easier than other times, but if you do it the same time every day, your muse is going to show up because it’s out of habit. There’s a routine to it. So same place, same time that could help you get work done and finish things and then also rethink your definition of what is finished work. So a lot of times we don’t think it’s finished because it’s not perfect or because we think we have to do certain things. But they.
BRETT-23:04
Match a standard or in our own minds or in the outside world either way.
SAGE-23:08
Right? Like, Oh, I’ve got to do all this background space or there’s, I’ve got to fill all the white space or whatever. And first of all, neither of those things are true. Like ever.
BRETT-23:16
Yeah, like shading is a thing like that. You know how much lighting and shading do you do? How much do you sculpt that If it’s a drawing for you.
SAGE-23:22
For drawing, Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you know, it’s none of those things are absolutes. So I said it’s not true. It’s not true that you don’t necessarily fill in white space. You can fill in white space and you can do a background. Yeah, but you don’t have to. You need to decide according to the intention of the work.
BRETT-23:37
What looks finished to you?
SAGE-23:38
What? Yeah, exactly. So let’s talk a little bit about what finishing is for you. So for one, if you want it to be finished, it does need to do two things, I think. One is that needs to be serviceable and I’ve talked about this before too, so I apologize. You hear this stuff multiple times, but I guess it’s important so as to be serviceable, which means it needs to be able to be hung or to be displayed or to be worn or whatever it is that work would do once it goes out into the world. So if it’s constructed in a way that it can be serviceable, then that’s one of the checkmarks. And the other thing is does it say what you wanted it to say? Does the intention come through if both of those things are there, regardless of certain parts being incomplete or maybe it’s not is finishes, other people do it. If it does what you needed to do and you feel it represents you in the way you want it to represent you, then you can call it done. The other thing too is you can embrace incompleteness. There is a kind of a fascination in incomplete things like we get to see the work frozen in time, the art in process without an end to its story kind of thing. If what you want to say comes through, kind of emerges from this incomplete piece rather than it being polished, it may be done, if that makes sense. Does that makes that that.
BRETT-24:56
Totally makes sense. It has the force of the essence behind it. And that’s the important thing, not the bells and whistles of a good product.
SAGE-25:03
Yeah, it doesn’t have to be the product that everybody else is putting out. It just needs to say what you needed to say. There’s actually a type of work I discovered through this research that is defined by deliberate incompleteness and it’s called non finito, intentionally finding unfinished business as a means of expression that invites the viewer to contemplate what’s left out and or the metaphor that arises from the particularly incomplete parts of the scene.
BRETT-25:30
It makes me picture like a, you know, drawing a face without an eye. Everything else is perfectly finished, though. Yeah, it feels like it make a real impact.
SAGE-25:38
Yeah. Yeah. And there’s this long history. Da Vinci has a number of unfinished pieces because apparently he took forever to do advocacy. Co getting distracted. You know, he had did all his.
BRETT-25:49
Science print.
SAGE-25:49
Inventions and science stuff. Yeah. So he didn’t finish a lot of pieces. There’s a madonna with a long neck and she’s done and the baby’s done and the little angels are done. But then if you go down, especially in the right hand corner and there’s the little guy down there, oh, and then there’s just like a random foot floating around.
BRETT-26:05
Oh, I love that.
SAGE-26:06
And the background above him isn’t done. It makes it so real.
BRETT-26:09
Are you talking about what’s his name?
SAGE-26:11
Yeah, I don’t remember his name, so I probably shouldn’t look at that. But I think he’s the Madonna with the long neck. Is actually unfinished. There’s some Hondurans that are, you know, they sell for millions of dollars. There’s one of his boogie woogie series that is not finished. And I mean, these things sell for huge amounts of money, but the incompleteness in and of itself actually adds to the work. And I think the other thing about incompleteness is it really shows the artist’s hand in a way that makes it, you know, almost more vulnerable. Like you really get to like push aside the veil and see.
BRETT-26:43
Mistakes and imperfections and exploring. And you can see the thought in the line. And to me, that’s really engaging. Like, I love that, you know, So.
SAGE-26:52
If part of what you’re trying to say is see me or see my process or understand kind of what I’m going through, or you want to share the process with the people that you’re sharing your work with, incompleteness could actually be an important part of your work. So if you’re not finishing stuff, sometimes, maybe ask yourself, Do you love it even if it’s unfinished? And if you do, is it because some of the unfinished ness is saying something additional is adding another layer to the work for you?
BRETT-27:19
Yeah. And maybe you’re uncomfortable with being seen, you know, your work being seen that unprocessed, unfinished, you know, I think there’s a lot of people who could relate to that. They don’t want to show the imperfections.
SAGE-27:29
Yeah, but it could be really freeing to do so.
BRETT-27:32
I think so, Yeah, I do. I like doing that.
SAGE-27:35
Usually reading about this stuff has made me think I just want to do some stuff. I’m like, not finished. Yeah, just have fun. It’s just kind of like you.
BRETT-27:40
Go because it’s a legitimate process of exploration, you know? You’re just like, Oh, I’m going to try this. And, oh, well, I’m. I’ve taken that as far as I want, at least for this moment. So I’m going to go either do something else or I’m I’m done, you know.
SAGE-27:53
But that’s Sherry’s.
BRETT-27:54
Done with not being finished, which is sort of ironic.
SAGE-27:56
Yeah, but it’s something you can share with other people. She’s like, This is part of my world. This is part of my process. This is part of the things that are important to me, including this exploration is and the exploration is going to come across an unfinished work more so than finish work.
BRETT-28:08
Yeah, right. And that’s really, I think, really valid and makes it something new to experience. You see someone, it’s like you’re sharing an experience with them.
SAGE-28:17
I’ll post some work of people doing this non finito work or famously unfinished.
BRETT-28:22
Interesting. I want to see it.
SAGE-28:23
Yeah.
BRETT-28:24
Non.
SAGE-28:24
Finito. Yeah. There’s energy to it.
BRETT-28:26
What did that. When did that originate? Who made up that word?
SAGE-28:29
I don’t know. I didn’t find the history about it. Yeah, I just read that’s what you call it. So but I think it’s, I just thought that was really cool.
BRETT-28:35
In completo English.
SAGE-28:37
I’ll be writing a play now. It’s an incomplete work. Yeah. So. Okay. And then the other thing that we want to bring up, because this is such a thing, why we don’t finish work is because we don’t know when to stop. And I have this great quote. So. Matt so I’m guessing I’m not very.
BRETT-28:54
Spell it.
SAGE-28:55
F UCL. He has a site called the Virtual Instructor and he wrote about overworking your art, not knowing when to stop. He said We don’t want to overwork our art, but we also don’t want to stop before it has reached its full potential. We know that we need to stop at the peak, but we don’t know where we are on the mountain. Yeah, I don’t know if that’s his original quote, but it’s such a good metaphor for our work. You never know when it’s really done. And to be honest, I just say work is never done. It is never done. There’s always something you could change or improve or later on you think, Oh, that’s not really what I want to say anymore. Not so. I feel like artwork is never completed. Yeah, but when you want to know when there’s that point that you finish, it’s like being on a mountain, but in like a cloud. Yeah. You know, you want to know when it’s peak, but you don’t know where the peak is because it’s like it’s just cloudy there yet.
BRETT-29:45
It’s almost like having a radar for when that experience wanes, you know, when it feels like you pause. It’s almost like you’re playing a rhythm and then when the rhythm stops, Yeah, that’s my cue. I think when I’m doing something, I’ll stop when I become really aware of it. Yeah. I feel like, okay, I feel like I’ve taken this is as far as I can. Sometimes I keep going and it keeps working.
SAGE-30:07
I feel like you have to be really in touch with your ideas about what you need your work to be for you. Like you are very intuitive, extremely intuitive, like you go by your gut on a lot of things and I think in your artwork you can totally be like, Oh, I feel like this is where it needs to be, you know?
BRETT-30:24
Yeah, it’s a sense for it. I can’t explain it right.
SAGE-30:28
And I don’t think it’s anything you can teach, but maybe trying to ask yourself those questions more deliberately, like, is this finished? Does this feel good as it is? I actually have some bullet points that kind of talk about that. So number one, with your work, don’t measure whether it’s finished by whether you can see that there’s more to do on the piece because you’ll forever find more to be done, fixed and tweaked or polished. Yeah. And then that’s when you overwork.
BRETT-30:54
Because then as I leave details out and, and it’ll have a resonance to it that I really respond to. I can’t explain it, but it looks maybe too finished. Maybe I like things to feel a little impressionistic. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that’s the bottom line of an impressionist. Yeah. Or, you.
SAGE-31:09
Know, But you’re showing me a sketch the other day. Is this really cool sketch of this kind of melty looking guy? I explain it. Yeah, he does.
BRETT-31:17
He a lot of melty things.
SAGE-31:18
These things kind of melt. But in case you draw with, I guess, a red pencil, I think, is what it was. And then you started going back in it with a brush pen.
BRETT-31:26
Yeah, like a brush pin.
SAGE-31:27
And you only did it part way. Yeah. And then you stopped and I thought it was good that you stopped where you did because you just emphasized a certain portion of it. And then there was another sketch you had with a woman, and you did her with the ink outlines, but you didn’t do any of the other stuff around her, which was good, actually, because it emphasized her.
BRETT-31:44
It brought one part of the image into focus, right? That wasn’t my intention when I started it. I was just starting to draw right. You know, like do inking on this rough drawing. I did. And then I reached a point and I stopped because I was like, It’s this won’t be pleasing to me to see all of this inked.
SAGE-32:00
But you do have to stop at various points and ask yourself, where am I on? Is it finished? Is it not finished? You know, or again, put it away for a little while and then pull it out and ask yourself, do I look at it now and do I feel fulfilled and feel that it’s complete and I could hang it on my wall and be proud of it when people look at my work?
BRETT-32:15
Yeah.
SAGE-32:15
So that’s actually another one of the points I had here is could you hang it or display it or wear it and feel good about it? If you can, then I think you’re done. You can also use elements of design. I kind of do a check like, is there a good focal point? Does the composition lead the eye around is needed, Is there enough and the right kind of contrast for the intention of the message? So if you go through all your design elements, you could just do like a check that everything’s been taken care of that really needs to be taken care of. This is a little bit of a grey area because this you could overwork things because you’re like, Oh my gosh, I don’t think there’s enough contrast. And then you just keep trying to work the contrast out too much and you could overwork it. So it’s a checklist to make sure the stuff is there that needs to be there and that is done to the extent that you need it to be done. But don’t think, Oh, I need to do more, so I’ve got to be careful. So it’s kind of a grey area as far as like, you know, use it if you understand the design elements enough and you know, it’s not going to drive you to try to do too much. You can also, as I said before, put it away and come back later and ask yourself if you feel fulfilled about it. You can also see if you can look at it and say, it’s done for now, even knowing it could still be improved. Can you get past the impulse to keep improving it and just say it’s done for now? Leave yourself an open door, especially if you’re not going to sell it to come back to it later, but maybe you hang it as it is now.
BRETT-33:38
Something I do on Procreate. This app that you can draw on on.
SAGE-33:41
Your iPad.
BRETT-33:42
And my iPad, you can like, you know, duplicate an image over and over again. You can make multiple copies of the files. So I would do different versions of finishing. Yeah. These images and deciding how far I want to take things like sometimes it goes too far. So that’s okay. I have others, right? And it’s this really liberating thing where it’s there’s no pressure. I know I could way overdo it and it’s almost like I want to do that and discovering what feels good and bad about that. It’s a really good point.
SAGE-34:10
If you have issues with either not finishing or with doing too much having work that you don’t worry about, I mean, not all work, not all materials will allow you to do that. Like our technology today for drawing or painting or whatnot. You can take a picture and put it on an iPad or computer and work over it to see how things will be changed. Yeah, you could do that with three dimensional work. You know, you take a picture of it and put it into your computer and then kind of mess around with it to see how it will look. If you change color or you take away something, you add something. But if you can’t use technology to do that have pieces that you just go into and just really mess around with them. I remember when I was in my final year of art school, I had independent painting and I had this one painting and it just wasn’t working. So I put it aside. But what I ended up doing was I would just slash away at it, literally sometimes slash away it. I would cut it in. So back up I would painted with, you know, finger painting. I would just just mess around with it.
BRETT-35:08
I want to see that painting. Yeah.
SAGE-35:10
I gather they weren’t, but I would just do whatever I wanted to as I had a piece that when I was having a hard time getting into something, or if I wasn’t sure about how I wanted to come out, I can mess around with this one piece. It was a complete mess, but I actually really enjoyed looking at it because it represented just like pure energy to me. Yeah. So if you have work that you don’t feel is precious, that you have to make it finished or perfect or you know, it has to come out a certain way, you can let yourself go on those maybe that a practice part.
BRETT-35:40
Of it not to be too precious really in the process.
SAGE-35:42
Anyway. And then I think one of the big things really, because we are not the best judges of our work, right, that we need to ask other people. This can be hard, especially with unfinished work. And you’re a little concerned about people seeing you. You know, how poorly you initially start off with. We all start off work poorly. So, you know, when you have unfinished work and you want to get an opinion like whether it’s good enough or how people think you’re doing, getting outside opinions are wonderful. I kind of steer away from family and friends because they always just tell you you’re wonderful or you have those family or friends that are just like, So what do you say? Blunt And honestly, yeah.
BRETT-36:20
Right.
SAGE-36:21
And then you’re scared. But other artists like Brett and I, we kind of committed to being honest with each other about each other’s work.
BRETT-36:30
And it just always comes natural to us.
SAGE-36:32
Yeah, well, it depends on how you say something like, if I think something’s not done well or what not, he knows I’m going to tell him. Yeah, and he can trust that. I’m going to tell him the truth.
BRETT-36:41
Yeah, but I won’t show her everything.
SAGE-36:43
So there’s certain things you will not you will not show because he knows. I will tell him the truth.
BRETT-36:48
Of what she thinks. And I value it, you know. But we have different tastes.
SAGE-36:52
And vice versa, you know, like whether he appreciates what I do or not. But the thing is, is we can always find the value in what we’re doing. So if you can find someone who will find the value in your work, who can tell you what works well and what doesn’t work well, I feel like this is going to be a podcast of referencing other podcasts, so go to art criticism to talk about how to criticize and how to take criticism in a supportive way. But yeah, if you can take your work that you’re not sure is finished or not to other people, and if someone says, I don’t see this is done, I would hang this in my house, I would buy this right now. How much you want, you know, then you know that your judgment of it not being finished may be incorrect or not quite spot on. So if you have somebody that you feel like you can trust and I do recommend finding local artist groups and you can again, her referencing all my previous episodes, the episode of Megan Skelton, we talked about community and finding people to collectively work with or talk to about your work. If you have groups like that, local groups, online groups, meetup groups, whatever.
BRETT-37:59
Yeah, another artist who’s friend I think is always good to someone who you part of your friendship is about being artists together and talking about everything and Yeah. So does that someone devalue? Yeah.
SAGE-38:09
Yeah. It doesn’t have to be a group, but just another artist I think would be most helpful in terms of figuring out if something is finished because they’ll understand some of the things that you are questioning. The more likely to point out, Oh, this color doesn’t work here or this balance is not good here.
BRETT-38:24
Is right.
SAGE-38:25
Edge isn’t really finished enough compared to all the other ones. Maybe that’s what you want to work on and they’ll be able to see it. They’re going to see it from a more objective point than you will.
BRETT-38:32
Yeah. And if that’s the kind of input you want.
SAGE-38:35
Yeah.
BRETT-38:36
People want different kinds of input. Yeah.
SAGE-38:38
So, so those are kind of my offerings for you. My points of possible ways to work with things that are unfinished or figuring out if you need them to be finished. So now that we’ve talked about all of these points, Brett’s been sitting here nodding a lot and not saying anything. So I think he’s got a lot.
BRETT-38:54
Going or I’m thinking about dinner. One of the I.
SAGE-38:57
Don’t know exactly.
BRETT-38:59
You know. No, that’s not true.
SAGE-39:00
Well, what do you think about this conversation about finishing? Yeah, well.
BRETT-39:04
It’s really inspiring to me to consider these other ways that I could get myself evaluating my work, whether I want to take it further. If I feel the impulse to do that, I will or I won’t. And I’ll be okay with that. Like that sort of that guilt is sort of lifting. And that’s the thing that I’ve I think I have struggled with like, like, shouldn’t it be more shouldn’t I be doing a series of these? Shouldn’t I be all these shows that I put on.
SAGE-39:26
It all the time?
BRETT-39:27
But I think if it’s a matter of of something really calling me, I will do that. Yeah. And maybe this exploration period I’m in is just looking for that.
SAGE-39:36
Yeah.
BRETT-39:37
But yeah, I will definitely get a lot out of that inspiration. So thank you for that. This is really, really cool conversation. Well, it was a hard conversation for me to have because part of me is like, Well, of course I finish things. I guess there’s a certain self-awareness in me that what should I be ashamed of not finishing? And really, after this conversation, I kind of takes away the shame of that. So I would be ashamed of. It’s a creative process and it is what it needs to be. I think when I have external pressures, it’s everything is thought through on every imaginable level. Yeah, I’ve gone through it a billion times.
SAGE-40:09
Yeah. Like every episode, every does goes. This is really, really important. This has to be the best. And it’s like as if, like the last one, wasn’t it? You just.
BRETT-40:17
See this.
SAGE-40:19
Yeah. So, yeah, I was just wondering what was going through your brain over there.
BRETT-40:23
Yeah.
SAGE-40:23
So, no, you got really quiet. I’m like, Yeah.
BRETT-40:25
It’s a lot to think about. A lot to consider.
SAGE-40:27
Well, that’s great. Yeah, I and I’m thinking in terms of finishing work, I generally do finish, but I so loved all that non finito work that I saw. Yeah. That I’d really like to try doing stuff that has some unfinished space in it. Most of my stuff is not representational. I don’t Yeah. Necessarily draw people’s faces. I used to, I did photorealism when I was in college so I do a lot of kind of abstraction or, you know, things that are more about balancing color and light and getting impressions of things. So the things I do wouldn’t be necessarily seen as unfinished so readily as like you paint a person and you don’t put in an eyeball or you don’t put in an arm or something like that. That’s an intervention that’s not done. So yeah, but I would like to explore that more, like maybe not doing as much as I usually do. I know when I was younger it was a really hard thing for me not to fill the page.
BRETT-41:20
Right? See? Oh, that’s like we’re eating dinner. Their parents train you to clear your dish. You should stop when you’re not hungry anymore.
SAGE-41:28
Right? Right. I mean.
BRETT-41:29
That’s a good metaphor for all the stuff.
SAGE-41:31
Yeah, that’s true. I think when you come into art, the idea that you fill the white space is such a There’s a drive to do that. Yeah, white space is really important. And it’s not. By the way, if you’re unfamiliar with the concept of white space, it just means that space, it doesn’t have anything going on in it. It doesn’t mean that’s necessarily white, but our eyes like to have kind of open space. And that was a really important thing for me to learn, was white space.
BRETT-41:54
Less is more, you know.
SAGE-41:56
Less and be Yeah, for sure. So I hope all this conversation about finishing has got you pondering where you’re at with that. And I almost feel like I want to start the podcast right now and not finish it.
BRETT-42:08
Finish it. You must finish it.
SAGE-42:11
It’s like to just end, but now we’ll wrap things up. If you have some experiences with finishing or not finishing your work, you want to share those stories with us. I always love to hear your stories.
BRETT-42:22
Honestly, this conversation is never, ever finished. None of this speak, you know? I mean, that’s the truth. This is not finished. This is really just a beginning, an inquiry for.
SAGE-42:31
Many of us. So if you would like to continue the conversation, since it’s really not finished, you can completely Absolutely. Send me your stories. Send me your comments. You can reach out to me on the Sage Cars.com website and go to the contact page or send me emails with your comments. You can go to Instagram or Facebook at the Sage Arts podcast, all one word. Find those pages, follow me and comment or send me messages. And if you get a lot out of this podcast and you want to give back, go to the Sage Cars.com, Scroll down the home page and you’ll find it. Buy me a coffee and people donation buttons there, as well as links to buy Feed Your Muse stickers. Or you can buy polymer art books or magazines. All that stuff goes to help support what I do. So no.
BRETT-43:13
Pressure. No pressure.
SAGE-43:15
No pressure there. There is no pressure, but no pressure. But if you appreciate it and you want to give back, I love that. Not just because it helps finance what we’re doing, but because it’s affirmation that I am giving you the kind of material that you want.
BRETT-43:26
So you value it.
SAGE-43:27
Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate that. So with that said, we are going to finish this, but I.
BRETT-43:33
Never thought we’d be finished. Oh my God.
SAGE-43:36
So.
BRETT-43:37
Well, finish with this beginning.
SAGE-43:38
We finish with this beginning.
BRETT-43:40
Go out. Beginning of the conversation. Yeah.
SAGE-43:42
Go out and do the work. Finish when it makes sense. Don’t finish when it doesn’t make sense. Before we leave, Brett wants to say goodbye. Any last unfinished words, Brett?
BRETT-43:52
I just wanted to say that.
SAGE-43:55
And that’s what you want to say. So I wanted to do an unfinished. I was really want to just leaving you that so. So, Brett, you have no more words. I think as you stopped, I’m not sure you can finish. John. Now you can say more. Okay.
BRETT-44:07
See, I went on. Just when you think I’m finished, then. Okay, I’ll stop now.
SAGE-44:11
So. Yeah. So go out, do the work and finish. You’re not finished according to what you need and don’t feel guilty if you don’t finish. It’s part of the process. But do go have wonderful creative time, feed your muse, go out and do new and interesting things. Stay true to your weirdness and I’ll see you again next time on the Sage Arts podcast.
