After last week’s post, my good friend and art buddy Dianne Shullenberger brought up a good question: “In digging deeper and deeper into work is it sometimes bordering on overworking?”
Textural Side View ©2015 Elizabeth Fram
After thinking about it for a bit, this was my response: “I think there is a fine line between just right and overdone – & one that Gerald Auten recognized we were shying away from by perhaps under-evolving our drawings. My take on the subject is that we just have to be brave and forge ahead. I find when I push beyond my comfort zone exciting discoveries can be made. But as you suggest, sometimes one can overdo it – and then you have to chalk it up to experience.”
Almost finished, in the afternoon sun… ©2015 Elizabeth Fram
With time and practice I find I am becoming more competent at judging how far to push a piece, although the key qualifier in that statement is “more”. There is no substitution for doing the work, and as you make more work, these mysteries begin to clarify — don’t you think? This article from ARTNews illustrates that the answer to how far to push a piece is as individual as each artist.
I like what Emilio Perez has to say…it’s about a conversation. For me that conversation begins even before I begin the piece and it progresses as I work on the piece. In my experience my representational work determines it’s finish point more easily than abstract – but there is still an ongoing conversation (what to do, where to go, how to do it, how to bring the viewer in and through the work, when is it enough). In my abstract work the conversation (the work) leads me. Each time I study the work – it speaks, and leads me on. It is an adventure…the conversation is clear and the finish point is never in question.
I agree Pam, I too like the analogy of a conversation. I was struck by the number of artists in the article who didn’t seem able to discern that a finished end-point had been reached – continually revisiting the work until outside influences force them to stop. I would find it difficult to live with such an ongoing sense of a piece being unresolved.
And while I occasionally see areas that I would like to rework on certain pieces after time has passed, I figure that is part and parcel of what I’ve learned in the interim, taking those lessons forward into new work.
Sorry…that’s representational.