Bad Work Into Good

This is about painting bad work.

As painters, we know it is disheartening to paint, day after day, trying to get our actions to meet our goals. What we see in our minds is fluid, a wise professor once told me, and cannot be translated into an image on the two or three dimensional surface. Ever. But it does not stop us from trying.

We are constantly surprised by what comes about, sometimes good, sometimes not.

When we paint tirelessly everyday, we keep going. It is so hard to spend, as David Lynch would say, most of the time looking at the work and very little time altering what we have done. It is hard enough just using that part of our mind which is non verbal. It puts us in a different world.

When we see that we have produced bad work, we are inclined to give up.

I learned through experience, that it is in those very bad paintings, the truth: That, we have reached a higher level. And we need this challenge to break through. When we do, we create something better. Better than all the work we have done before.

I see it this way: We practice (a plateau where nothing changes and we are satisfied with our work), we rest (giving ideas time to develop), and we learn. It is in the learning that we create bad work. And that is a very good sign.