the best thing I ever did for my sales was post a painting I hated

I painted over a self portrait in November. Full blackout, then I rebuilt the whole thing in about four hours, wrong on purpose, ugly around the mouth. I posted it at like 1am expecting nothing.

It's now the only piece I've sold twice. First print buyer was a guy in Dublin who said it "looked how grief feels in your shoulders." Then a woman in Lyon bought the original.

Meanwhile the two pieces I spent six weeks on, glazed and reworked and babied? Crickets. One of them is still leaning against my radiator.

I'm not saying everyone should post the worst thing they make. I'm saying I had my "good" work and my true work and I could not tell them apart until strangers did it for me. I was cropping out the hand that shook because I thought the shaking was a flaw.

Still don't fully know what to do with that. I keep making careful things and hating them and hating myself a little for making them careful.

Also I stopped scheduling posts. I used to sit on a piece for a week "timing" it right. Now it goes up the second it comes off the easel, wet, glare in the corner, whatever. Sales went up. Not a ton. Enough that I noticed.

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Gloria Mae Jackson·3w

I know exactly what you mean, honey. I been piecing quilts sixty-some years and the ones I fussed over, measured twice, took my time with? Family walks right past em. But the one I threw together out of my daddy's work shirts and a scrap of my mother's church dress, seams crooked, nothing matching, that one hangs in my granddaughter's house and folks stand in front of it and cry. Something about the made-fast ones, you can feel the hand in em. The labor shows different when you ain't smoothing it down. That said, don't you go throwing out the six-week pieces. They taught your hands what the four-hour one already knew. 🙂

Dimitra Vasilakis·3w

Sixty years of piecing and you're still noticing it. I set mosaic, and the ones I plan to death come out stiff. The best thing I made last year was a panel where I ran out of smalti and had to cut down into scrap tile I'd pulled off a wall. Ugly palette, tight deadline, and it has more life in it than the careful ones sitting in my studio. The hand shows when it's not being told what to do every second.

You're right about keeping the fussy ones though. They're the practice. You don't get to make the fast good one without all the slow ones teaching your fingers where things go.

Sol ReyesOP·3w

"The hand shows when it's not being told what to do every second." Ok that's going on my wall, I'm stealing it.

And the scrap tile thing. You ran out of the good stuff and had to reach for what was already broken off a wall, and THAT'S the one with life in it. I don't think that's a coincidence. There's no room for the little voice second-guessing every cut when you're just trying to finish before the deadline eats you.

Sixty years though. I'm 31 and I'm already catching myself getting precious with pieces, so it's genuinely good to hear it never stops being a fight. You just get better at noticing you're doing it.

Fussy ones are the practice, yeah. But mine against the radiator is staying there. Little reminder.

Sol ReyesOP·3w

Sixty-some years. Ok, I need to sit down. That's longer than I've been alive and you're still out here noticing the difference between the fussy ones and the ones that carry a hand in them. Wow.

The crooked quilt out of your daddy's work shirts and your mama's church dress. I bet that thing is heavier than it looks. That's the part nobody says out loud, the fabric already had the life in it, you just didn't get in the way of it. I do that same thing with the blackout portrait and I couldn't have told you why until I read your comment.

And no, I'm not throwing the six week pieces out, my hands needed those. One of them is literally still against the radiator though and I feel seen and slightly called out lol. Thank you for this. ❤️

Ramesh Jha·3w

This is a strange thing to read, ji, because in our work we are taught the opposite. Six weeks of glazing and reworking is not wasted, that is tapasya, that is discipline, and my mother would say the painting that takes long carries the prayer in it. But what you are saying also I understand. When I paint a Kohbar or a Durga too neatly, thinking of the buyer, it becomes flat. When I paint fast, for the ritual, for the family, not thinking who will buy, that one people keep. Maybe the buyer is not buying the hours. They are buying the moment you were honest. Your Dublin buyer said grief in the shoulders, that is the truth of it. But do not throw away the radiator one also. Some pieces wait for their person.

Sol ReyesOP·3w

Tapasya. I had to sit with that word for a second because I think you're right AND I think we're talking about two different hungers. The six weeks isn't wasted, I'd never say that, I've got pieces I reworked for months that taught me everything I know about my own hand. But there's a point where the care turns into me performing care, if that makes sense. Glazing for the buyer. Glazing to prove I'm a real painter since nobody handed me a certificate. And the second I'm painting FOR someone the thing goes dead in my hands, I can feel it happen.

What you said about the Kohbar, painting it fast for the ritual and the family and not for who's buying, that's the whole thing right there. The hours aren't the prayer. The prayer is the prayer.

Your mother sounds like she'd have a lot to say to me and I'd probably need to hear it.