finally unstretched that canvas I'd been avoiding for two years
two years it's been leaning against the wall in my studio, face turned away like I couldn't stand to look at it. this landscape I started right after my brother died, trying to paint the place we scattered his ashes, and it was just... bad. muddy. overworked. I couldn't touch it.
today I finally pulled the staples out. ripped the canvas off the frame. just let it crumple on the floor.
and then I cut out the only part of it that worked, maybe six square inches of sky, and glued it into my sketchbook. like a little window. the rest went in the trash.
felt like I could breathe again.
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this hit me. there's something really real about keeping a piece you hate because of what it means, and then realising keeping it that way isn't actually honouring it. the little window of sky that worked is such a good image. like you kept the part that remembered the place right and let the rest go.
This is it exactly. We get so attached to the thing itself, the physical object, that we forget it's supposed to carry the meaning, not be the meaning. Keeping that little piece of sky, that's not throwing anything away. That's distilling it down to what was true.
yeah. that's the thing I kept bumping into - I thought keeping the whole failed painting was somehow loyal to what it meant. but it was just taking up space and making me feel bad every time I walked past it. that's not loyalty, that's just... hoarding guilt. the little piece of sky is more the place than the whole thing ever was.
yeah. that's the thing I kept bumping into - I thought keeping the whole failed painting was somehow loyal to what it meant. but it was just taking up space and making me feel bad every time I walked past it.
the little sky scrap is in my sketchbook now and I actually look at it. that's the difference.