For Many Artists, knowing when a piece is done can be a tough decision.
I know for myself it is a visceral decision. And it is not a cohesive choice, which probably makes my work suffer from inconsistency or not enough 'branding'. Having a cohesive 'style' that is 'marketable' is often the advice du jour, but one that I obviously don't always follow.
When going through some pieces this morning I found the sketch and this piece.
Actually, that is the thumbnail so chosen as I don't like Steemit's version of cropping. Here is the entire piece with all three dogs.
What struck me as I came across my piece in my 'to be finished' pile was the gut reaction.
Having found it again it was as if it was not done by me. Although it had been created by my hand, the bit of time between it's current state and now gave it a freshness that I responded to. The positive reaction I felt about it made me say out loud, "Well, this piece IS done".
Here is the partial sketch I saved as well. (More detail is visible here, but the initial layers of my work was where I stopped and when I today decided it was Done.)
We can go on and on about "Art is subjective" or conversely "Art should conform to some rules of completion" but honestly it is up to the artist and their final result for the piece. If you ARE trying to gather a body of work that is cohesively recognizable then by all means, make sure that is the case. You will sell better and people will understand you more. IF your art is for your own joy first, well then, the hell with it, you say DONE when you think it is DONE.
Obviously I love to sell my work and making money from my art is a plus. However, it has never been my first primary focus which is why I have only ever done the 'galley' scene a bit. When the internet and technology world suddenly threw at all we creatives the possibility to simply join online companies and have our work reproduced on all sorts of things for people to buy, I jumped in with both feet. I thought it really amazing to see something I made on a coffee mug or a bed spread. This may be seen as not 'fine art' or of a 'true artist'.
For me I have never understood the need, in the artist community, to separate and label artists and their movements and results.
Fine Art, Commercial Art, Illustration, Graphic Design et al. I suppose it is important in a Gallery Museum system to catalog works and make such a place make more sense in its layout. However, for the individual artist I think these lines are blurring.
As we move into the digital world more and more how we make, view and experience art is changing.
In some ways I think of Andy Warhol and his 'factory' and how he was challenging the idea of High Art and the 'suffering poor artist in their drafty garret' with the mass production and colourful easily made art of Post WWII America and Advertising. He was just peeking in a Pandora's box that has now beginning to have it's cover removed. The Digital world and it's experience is growing by leaps and bounds and in 10 years how we even see and use data will most likely be so vastly different to our concept of Real World Art Gallery and Museum, that it might seem more 100 years apart.
With the world becoming more instantaneous and received vary differently by the individual, cataloging and division becomes harder. As the world becomes digital: the access to it is like a great buffet laid out for us and we each can just dig in choose what to eat and how to place it on our own plate in our own way. The conformity of the outside 'curator' is disappearing. The consumer/viewer comes upon work digitally now and can view it in any fashion or manner they so choose. The context of their work is in mind of the viewer and not the outside source who decided to place it in this or that category.
The curation of the future will happen more by the viewer and their decision on when and what to click upon in the digital world of art display.
But, I digress... another result of being an 'artist' and spending far too much time alone working and pontificating on one's work also results in far too many ideas and theories by merely coming across a piece of work and deciding on it's state of completion. There might be a bit of my Art History education thrown in there as well, for I cannot make a piece without dissecting it afterwards.
I am first the Artist and then the Art Historian.
This is sort of the criteria I use to decide when a piece is done. Whilst making it, I go along and work from the gut, when stepping back, I analyze that response to me and put it into context of previous works by me or other artists. And whether it is a scribble for fun, a study for a larger piece, or an idea for wallpaper, I treat it all the same.
- How do you decide when your work is "Finished"?
- Do you think a piece of art is ever really finished?
- What do you think the future of our digital world means for the value of 'Art'?
If you appreciate my work please feel free to upvote, resteem, and by all means comment.
