Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Yesterday, Today

Painting: the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather 
and exposing them to the critic.

Do y'all remember the (W)holons Painting Process blog posts from the summer?

I really disliked that painting (umm... yeah, disliked).
         {resisted sending it to the show with 
some bogus reason 
which felt completely legit at the time}

Well, another showing is coming up and it's time to face the music. Over the weekend, I met with my lovely Mamacita's and mentioned my emotional reaction to this painting. Good advice was given: revisit it. So yesterday I did.

It was immediately clear: this painting is unfinished. How did that get by me? Oh yeah, it was due on August 1 and the month of July (after teaching a good bit) had been completely taken over by family upheaval.

This a really great lesson for me: I cannot do it all to my satisfaction. Prioritizing is where its at, baby.
There were so many things going on in July, there was no way that painting was getting the attention it needed, and on top of that, the decision to blog it all through added more weight to it. I'm so glad that painting didn't go off to that show. It was awful to miss a deadline. Truly. I never ever miss deadlines. But have learned something further about extenuating circumstances. Everything people say is right: "Go Easy On Yourself." I've even said it to people (most sincerely). It's taken 55 years to really begin to understand it. Who the heck needs that kind of aggravation?
And on an entirely **HAPPY NOTE * ...
new (used) Husqvarna sewing machine is a dream. Free motion quilting is really fun.
That's it folks.

2 comments:

Sarah Anderson said...

I'm terrible for not going easy on myself so it's good to know I'm not alone! But wouldn't it be great if we CouLD do it all to our absolute satisfaction. Ah well, there's reasons why we can't :)

Diana Trout {Nan.DT@verizon.net} said...

Hah, Sarah. Perfectionism is a curse! I've worked on that over the years and it honestly wasn't the case here (at least I don't think so, hmmm.)