It was almost two years ago when I decided to recycle an old painting that I had fallen out of love with.
I can’t remember fully what it looked like; I just remember the day I decided that it would be nice to draw something different than what I would normally paint, and something a little bit easier, just for the heck of it. Once the primer had dried over the canvas, covering the painting that lay beneath, I began forming a new piece: a simple painting of a beach. I had started laying down the foundation for the painting, which included a plain blue sky and a matte blue ocean, going into darker and darker shades of blue as it reached the horizon, and a couple-inches-thick strip of brown sand at the bottom of the canvas. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of what it looked like, which truly is a shame as I had all the time in the world to take a snapshot of it. You see, this piece sat in this sad unfinished state in my art space, in not one but two houses, since I started it two years ago. This isn’t exactly an unfamiliar thing to any creative person. We all have that one artwork (although, more realistically we have more than just one) that we haven’t finished. Due to a litany of circumstances, such as changes at work, stress, loss of inspiration, or (what I tend to be guilty of) overwhelming inspiration in a new artwork, we can leave a potential masterpiece stuck in these beginning stages: sometimes for a few weeks, or a few years. How we tackle these unfinished works can be varied; sometimes, like the initial piece I mentioned at the very beginning, we will just start over and use the materials from the old piece in something new. Other times, we might just let it collect dust or toss it altogether. (This is not an option one should be ashamed about; sometimes it just doesn’t work out). However, the option that I tend to love the most is when a piece long abandoned becomes the piece you need to work on at the moment. As it turns out, the simplicity of this piece was exactly the cure to the painters’ block I had been experiencing shortly after the beginning of quarantine. Maybe it was boredom that influenced my decision to put it back on the easel, or perhaps the piece I had been working on up to that point was simply too heavy emotionally to work on, but I’m happy that the decision was made. It was delightful with its cheery, warm blues and yellows, and it even helped me to remember a trip I took to Nassau this past December with the partner I’m quarantined away from at the moment. It’s by no means a “perfect” piece, as I winged most of it, but finishing these kinds of pieces is never really about hitting a perfect landing anyway. It’s more about the long journey it takes to finally reach the destination it always deserved, which is to hang proudly on your wall: a work completed. - Jasmine Green, Center for Creativity Assistant. Find Jasmine's work here or follow her on Instagram.
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