Something I'm usually too sickened to do to a piece of work in any form is to return to it to try and fix the things that I find problematic.
A mixture of shame, self disgust and the back of the mind niggle that I might wake up and see it The Right Way steers me in the opposite direction, no matter how much I see that got so close to working but fell short.
All of the above mixed with three strokes of sheer laziness, that is.
Most often these canvases go from easel to the fifth row; the place at the back of a stack of canvases that I don't want leaning hard up against something of more pride or value. A prop. I paint, ink, photograph and then file them under "useful rigid piece of crap' that never sees the light of day. Sometimes, they make it out into the world though.
The canvas I'll refer to in brief as the 'Wonder Forever' painting was a great example of this. I really enjoyed working on it. It garnered a surprising amount of positive feedback. It was nearly what I pictured when I set out. It was close, I thought.
I hated it.
For a year or so it was in another gallery on consignment and when I finally remembered it existed, the pang of shame was immediately overridden with the mental image of what I should have done with it - I requested it be returned and quickly set about fixing it.
I fucked up the first go, but it didn't matter- we were already 6 layers deep and there was no reason not to black out and start over again, at the sort of speed you can move at when you're drawing on the back of a an old prescription; that of the Nothing To Lose variety.
Anyway. It's done. Better. Existing right up there as one of my paintings that I actually like. Resting on the easel, too big for my next group show and so, available for private sale. For any enquiries, email info@candicetripp.com
For kicks, this is the original version you've probably seen. The one that left me prickly and embarrassed:
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