at long last...

Some pieces of artwork seem to flow nearly effortlessly from one stage of my process to the next - or at least come steadily without much stress, the product of many years of art-making. This is how it usually works, and how I can continuously produce & sell art at a rate that begins to sustain me.

But once in a while, the artwork is stubborn, the process does not flow easily, at least not at every stage, and it truly becomes art work. This has been one of those pieces; it started off reasonably enough, a second piece after a commissioned work on the same subject, one that I could do "for myself." That I could put on display, enjoy, and eventually sell. I often like to enjoy a piece for awhile myself before I sell it, and a commission can feel a little like giving up a child at birth, so I thought I'd sort of do it twice & I wouldn't miss it so much.

But I think that was the real problem here - the first piece, commissioned, flowed nicely and I was very happy with it, as was the collector, but then I didn't want to just reproduce it again, and that's where the difficulty began... this is the second piece, and I am pleased with it, but it came after much anguish & feeling stuck & disjointed. A long and difficult labor, to continue with the birthing metaphor; not that I love this child less, just that it was harder to bring it about than I expected and now I'm still in the recovery stage.

It's already gotten many accolades from my Facebook friends, so that's quite comforting - and I'm sure with a little time I'll feel better, but I also have a couple new commissioned pieces to dive into and I don't believe that I'll try to be doubling up on any of them at any time soon.