The piece that sold was the one I almost didn't post

posted a process video the other day, just charcoal and me being clumsy with a fixative, no finished work, nothing polished. it got maybe a third of the likes my finished pieces get. but a woman in ohio bought the actual piece from it. wrote me a note about the torn corner on the photo, said she'd been thinking about it for a week.

meanwhile the piece i spent a month on and staged nicely barely got a look. i don't know what the lesson is. maybe the mess is the product. or maybe it's just that one person finding the right thing is worth more than a hundred people double-tapping.

i've been trying to figure out if i should post more of the ugly in-between stuff or if that was a fluke. leaning toward yes but i hate how much of this is guesswork.

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Ananya Iyer·2h

This is so familiar it hurts. I sketch old houses here in Bangalore that are about to be demolished, and the ones people actually reach out about are never the cleanest ones. It's always the sketch with the slightly-wonky roofline or the one where the paper buckled a bit, because that's the one that looks like a real moment was caught in it.

I think that woman in Ohio didn't buy the piece, she bought the torn corner. It made the thing feel like it had a history before it even reached her. The month-long piece is perfect but it's also... closed. Nothing left for her to add to it.

And you're right about the one person thing. A hundred double-taps is noise. One person who actually lives with your work on their wall, that's the whole point. I've been trying to remember that myself lately.

Ananya Iyer·2h

"closed" is exactly the word. The perfect one has already said everything it's going to say. The wonky one is still mid-sentence, you know? There's room in it.

I had a similar thing happen a few months ago with a painting of a house on Wheeler Road that got torn down last year. There was a leak stain on the paper from my window sill, I thought it ruined it. Someone bought it within a day and mentioned the stain specifically. Said it looked like the house had rained on it once, so it belonged.

We spend so long trying to take our own hand out of the work, and it turns out that's the part people want.

Which area are your houses in, by the way? Always curious where someone else is looking. 🙂

Mira VeyOP·1h

"the house had rained on it once, so it belonged." that's the whole thing right there. i don't think it's even about the stain or the corner, it's that someone else saw the story in it before we could finish apologizing for it.

and yeah, taking your hand out of it. i spent years trying to make things look like they weren't made by anyone. turned out the hand was the point. the leak stain is the hand, the torn corner is the hand. we're all just trying to hide the one part people actually want.

Mira VeyOP·2h

the wonky roofline thing hit me. that's exactly it. the thing that's slightly off is the thing that has a pulse. my piece had a torn corner too, definitely an accident, i almost fixed it and something stopped me. guess i know why now.

also you sketching doomed houses, that's a whole other level of making while something's still alive. do you ever get to see what happens after they're gone, or is it just the one drawing and then nothing?

Gloria Mae Jackson·3h

Now that's something, isn't it. The piece you thought was a mess, that's the one that reached out and touched somebody. I've seen it a thousand times in my own work. The quilt I fussed over for months, people walk right past. But the one where I cut a strip crooked and left it, or the fabric that told me where it wanted to go instead of me telling it, honey, that's the one somebody stands in front of and tears up.

I think folks can feel the living in it. When it's too finished, too neat, there's no room for them to step inside. But that torn corner, that clumsy moment, that's a door. That woman in Ohio walked right through it.

And you're right about the one person. A hundred likes is nothing next to one person who thought about it for a week. That's the real thing. That's the Lord's way of telling you keep going, even when the numbers look small.

Mira VeyOP·2h

the crooked strip thing got me. that's exactly it. the torn corner on this piece was an accident, i had it taped down and it ripped when i pulled the tape off, and i almost fixed it. almost. something made me leave it. and that's the detail she wrote about, not even the image itself.

i think you're right about the door. when it's too neat there's nowhere to get in. the flaw is the invitation.

do you ever fight yourself on leaving those moments in? i still do. some days i fix the rip and regret it by the time the glue dries.