THE FALLIBLE EYE

I am proud of some of my paintings but I wish that I had done one thing as a matter of principle and discipline: this is not to let anything out of the studio for six months after it has been completed. 

This break would allow one’s fallible eye, which at the time of painting lets itself be fooled into ignoring faults, to recognise them as they become apparent with the passage of time.  There is some mechanism in the brain that suppresses one’s critical faculty while one is actually working.  This is intensely annoying but appears to be insurmountable. To a greater or lesser extent it happens to everyone I have talked to about it. 

The answer is to give this critical faculty a chance by leaving plenty of time for it to recover.  I find it extraordinary how my work is wonderful on the day it is painted, incredibly clever, the best, uniquely unusual, and so on.  I enjoy my evening, basking in the superb quality of what I have done.  The following day doubts start to gnaw at me, and two days later I can see that it is a load of old rubbish and I have to start again.  This happens every time, very little is ever any good after a week, however good it seemed to be when just finished. 

So give it six months.  If it is still acceptable then it has passed the test.  If not, bonfire it. 

I bonfire lots of stuff.

I’ve nothing more to say about art.   Just get on with it, 9.30am sharp tomorrow.