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The Destructive Allure of the Unfinished
Don’t let what you might do blind you to what you’ve already done
I’m mesmerized watching Eva Kalien’s reels of her mixed media sketches, but inevitably I want her to have stopped way sooner than she does.
I am drawn to some of Eva Kitok’s early embroidery work, where parts of the composition are outlined with stitch, but otherwise incomplete. Ditto the embroidery of Tilleke Schwarz.
And more times than not, I love my own sketches more than I do the finished piece.
What is it that appeals to me about the unfinished or almost finished, the quick sketches in the sketchbook vs the realized art?
When something is provisional, it means that I haven’t committed. That it still has the possibility to be brilliant. That there are still questions unanswered.
It’s like I get to be 25 all over again, starting my first job as an eager young “dressed for success” professional with PhD in hand, not the person who’s wrapping up a career at at least my 10th employer, having been fired and laid off more than enough times for the scales to have fallen from my eyes.
