Stick a Fork in it

"When is it done?" is an issue that most artists struggle with. Two major elements of the artistic temperment - flow and what could be described as its oposite - a compulsion torwards perfection - are so often at odds. While inspiration may come in an instant, an eloquent expression of that inspired moment generally requires considerably more time to make. Often times I work on something and decide it's finished, only to come back days later seeing nothing but flaws. Other times I see something close to perfection when I revisit a rough sketch I set aside early in the process.

I learned from using my camera is that the first shot is often the best; once you establish that you are taking a picture, you and your subject (if they are aware that you are taking a picture), often change into a self-aware pose of less interest than the moment you were trying to capture.

Something similar can happen with painting. You have an idea, you start to design your composition, and you realize that you are really a clever little bugger and that you are unbearably insightful of the absurdity of the human condition. If you're lucky, at this point someone will come along and poke a hole in your head to ease the swelling so that you can get on with the business of gessoing your canvas and applying pigments. If your not lucky, well, you're kinda stuck, things being as they are -- you being so brilliant and everyone else being such phillistines or flinstones or whatever it is you call those things with faces that are not you. Alas, they will never understand you.