Finishing and Lines

The other night I shared about my stressing over my unfinished work. I was encouraged during my yoga class regarding this matter. Then I wrote about it in a blog post, hopefully to encourage others as well, who may be feeling they have unfinished work lying around. 

I had been struggling with this feeling of all of my art work just having a lot of lines and not really a conclusion. I was trying to (and still am) resolve some of the issues in my pieces. Later that night, after my struggle, my encouragement and my blogging, a good friend stopped by the studio. She is an artist I greatly admire and respect. 

The first thing she said was, "Wow, look at all your finished work!" I of course did the natural thing and laughed my head off.

"What? You think this stuff is finished?" I asked her, thinking she was really just teasing. 

She said, "Don't touch it, it's done" about one of my drawings that I thought was so unbelievably not done. "If you do any more you'll ruin the line work and the nice moments it's creating."

The thoughts she shared with me had not occurred to me. I was blindsided and a bit dumbfounded. I could not believe she had walked in and seen a studio of progress and a studio of finished work. All I had seen for weeks and months is a bunch of unfinished lines. 

It had never occurred to me the lines were the sweet stuff. So here I am this evening, pondering finishing and lines and finishing lines.