The Not-So-Perfect Painting
by Kathryn Townsend on 5/31/2010 3:00:02 PM
9/5/09 "Coupeville Wharf", 10" x 12", Oil
When I talked to the judge of the Coupeville US Plein Air Open about the award he gave to my painting, "Coupeville Wharf," he said the reason he gave the award was because the painting was a true “plein air” painting and that it wasn't perfect. He said, waving his hand at the walls of other paintings, that sometimes the artist has an idea in her head and tries to make the painting perfect. Then he ran off to talk to somebody else, leaving me to wonder what he was really talking about and whether I should laugh or cry.
I have thought about this for almost a year now and if you follow this blog, you know that I have done battle with the idea of "the perfect"--the good and the bad painting, the never letting the bad paintings show, and the dilemma--which ones are the good paintings. But I can never be that certain, because the joy is in the process as much as the result. As you all know, that's why I started my daily painting blog, because "...a man learns to skate by staggering around making a fool of himself: indeed he progresses in all things by making a fool of himself.” --George Bernard Shaw
One of my teachers, when asked if he liked any of his paintings well enough to keep them, replied that he liked them for "about half an hour." This reminds me of Robert Genn's article, Birth Notice, where he advocates announcing the birth of a new painting while it is still wet--either through a daily blog or to close friends or even to a folder on the hard drive--and so preclude the agony of: do I dare show this not-so-perfect painting? How many times I have winced in the night over a painting I just posted to the daily blog, only to find in the morning a comment or email from someone who really liked it!
Kurt Vonnegut, in Player Piano, said: "I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." Part of my journey towards the edges of comfort and risk was to enter the current Daily Painters Contest. Out of 250 applicants, after jurying and public voting, amazingly I am in the top 10. I am far behind some of the other artists, but still in the game. So if you would like to help me give a good showing, please go to link and give me a vote. Remember, it is the number of votes that count, not the star rating. Voting for the top 5 will end on June 8, 2010.
If you are like me, you know that both success and failure bring anxiety, so the anchor to the steady path is to stick to my plan: no matter who is the winner and who is the loser, no matter if the painting is perfect or not-so-perfect, the only thing that really counts is to go into the studio or out into the open air every day and paint.
Here are some other wonderful quotes about perfection:
"Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks." ~Goethe
"Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything, That's how the light gets in." ~Leonard Cohen
"Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it." ~Salvador Dali
“The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.” ~ Eugene Delacroix
"The most difficult part of attaining perfection is finding something to do for an encore." ~Author Unknown
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