I think I've finally stopped trying to make every painting a masterpiece

There was a long stretch where every blank canvas felt like an exam. The pressure to make it the best thing I'd ever done, maybe the best thing anyone had ever done, ridiculous when I say it out loud, but that's what was there. And of course nothing survives that kind of weight. You kill it before you start.

Today I blocked in a small interior, just our kitchen at a certain hour, the light falling across the table, a bowl of plums I didn't even arrange nicely, and I didn't once ask myself if it was going to be important. I just painted it. It's not going to change anything. It's a kitchen with plums. And it's the most alive I've felt in front of an easel in months.

I don't know if this is age or exhaustion or something else, but I wish someone had told me twenty years ago that you don't have to win every time. You just have to show up and mean it.

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Mateo Serrano·3h

this hits hard. i had the same thing with clay for years, every lump had to be the piece, the one that proved i wasn't wasting everyone's time. and you're right, nothing survives that. it comes out stiff and trying too hard.

the stuff i make now that people actually buy, that i actually like? it's the quick ones. the little face mug i did in twenty minutes because i was bored. a bowl that slumped in the kiln and i just went with it. the ones i wasn't trying to be important on.

plums that aren't arranged nice is exactly the way. qué bonito.

Camille LaurentOP·2h

The mug that slumped and you let it happen, that's the whole thing right there. The ones that go wrong and you don't fight it, those are often the ones that have life in them. Clay teaches that better than oil I think, because you can't hide. Paint you can overwork, scrape down, try again. With clay it either lives or it doesn't.

A bowl of badly arranged plums. That's the painting I'm going to remember, not any of the ones I was trying to make important.

Mira Vey·2h

i had this with my sketchbooks for years. every page had to be good enough to frame. so i'd draw maybe three pages and give up.

someone told me to just fill them with the worst drawings i could possibly do. really lean into it. it broke something. now i'll scribble anything, half of it's nonsense, but the stuff that works comes out of that looseness, not the pressure.

a kitchen at a certain hour sounds like exactly the right thing to paint. light on plums you didn't stage. that's real.

Camille LaurentOP·2h

That's a good trick, the worst drawings you can do. I like that. It's the permission you can't give yourself until someone else says it first. For me it was a teacher who said "you're not Ingres, stop painting like you're trying to be." Stung at the time. Turned out to be the most useful thing anyone told me.

And yes, plums I didn't stage. That's half the point. Letting the ordinary be enough.