Studio Failure

My studio time began with the intention of doing a few edits on a collage. I’d had this collage in my living room for a few weeks, and it wasn’t quite right in a few places. I wanted some more areas of white space and needed to cover up some of the curves.

Just a few small changes to make.

I couldn’t figure out how to achieve what I saw in my mind, no matter how many pieces of paper I moved around. I started adding marks, and paint, and more paper, and then I got out the palm sander. Fast forward a few hours and, well, an image is worth a thousand words, right?

This is how it looks after I gave up and started peeling back the mess to see if I could save the panel for another project. I eventually gave up and hid the panel in a dark corner of my studio.

I was in a terrible mood for the rest of the day. This failure brought up so many thoughts and feelings and it’s a wonder any artists keep showing up day after day.

1. The collage was good enough and I should have left it alone

2. Why can’t I make this work?

3. Don’t worry about this! It’s all part of the process.

4. I should stop trying to work on a larger scale and just make smaller works because they are easier

5. Why did I leave my teaching job?

6. Look how much I learned from trying to fix this piece- I really like that green paint over the sanded paper.

7. I’m taking too many classes and have too much information in my head that I’m trying to use all at once.

8. Maybe I should take another class and get some more ideas

9. Stop using paint.

10. Learn how to paint.

11. Maybe I should do some sketchbook work using paint- that would be fun.

12. I should get a real job

13. I can’t wait to get back into the studio tomorrow

I could keep going, as this list of contradictory thoughts went on all day. I was really happy to finally go to sleep and turn my brain off.

This was yesterday and today I’m looking forward to more studio time. I was excited to write this blog and share what I’m guessing is a pretty common day in the life of an artist. I know that this isn’t my first total disaster, but because it was on a wooden panel it seemed more serious than any works on paper that I just throw into the garbage.

When I scroll through Instagram and see beautiful works of art, I tend to forget that the artist probably has a great big stack of pieces that didn’t work.

If you’re an artist, I hope you feel seen after reading this. If you’re an admirer of art, I hope you feel like you’ve had more insight into what goes into the finished pieces. Not just time and effort, but a lot of emotions.