Working on this piece built around a found photograph from the 70s, this woman standing in a doorway, someone's aunt probably. I tore the paper around her and layered it onto a board with charcoal and acrylic. But there's this one hinge point where the photograph meets the torn paper and it just won't sit right. I keep adjusting the collage thinking the composition is off, then yesterday I realized the piece works fine everywhere except exactly where those two papers meet. The problem is the junction itself, not what's around it.

Every fix I try makes it worse. I pulled a strip of paper off and now there's a gap, so I'm just staring at this torn edge like it's going to solve itself.

Anyone else ever had a piece where one seam is the whole problem? Where you keep blaming the surrounding work and it turns out to be the one physical joint you chose?