Throwing in the Towel

There comes a time when there is no choice but to accept that a piece of art is, in fact, an epic failure and that it is time to throw in the towel.  This piece is just NOT going to happen.  I will never be satisfied, I will always be annoyed with the fact that no matter how much I paint it, attach wires, or change the mount, I just hate it.  This piece has been torturing me for almost two years.  I made a mistake in the form the day I made it, then tried to make the form work.  It doesn't work.  It started off beige and grim.  I tried incorporating fiber and wire and, as I observed back then, the result was a terrorist in a fluffy skirt.  It was horrible.

Next came more paint, removal of fiber, addition of wire, then more wire, and little metal bits.  I tried too hard to save a piece not worth saving.  Tossing this piece won't mean total failure for me.  I've learned what doesn't work, to trust my first instincts, but to also just keep handling a variety of materials in an effort at getting better with those materials.  I can throw in the towel and not feel as if I've completely wasted my time.  Well, I can try to talk myself into believing that if I say it enough times in my head.  In any event, I'll never feel free to do something else until I can just give up on this disaster. 

This last month I have tried harder to find that balance between mom and artist.  It's hard.  I still feel like a fraud when I call myself an artist.  I make stuff, but not even enough stuff to justify the title of artist.  Maybe I'm just a slow crafter.  But I'm spending more time than ever in my garage studio, hoping for continued moderate weather so that I can work in here in peace and mentally begging for creative juices to flow more freely.  Now all I have to do is make a sign for the back of my chair so that solicitors don't feel that an open studio door is an open invitation to interrupt with their efforts to sell me meat from a truck (seriously, it's disgusting) or their fumigation services or their religion.  Time to sport a holster loaded with an air horn.  It works on teenage boys...

Time to move on.