Not really, but today I’m posting
about a no-no. Or at least, it’s commonly described as a no-no.
I’m talking about re-working an old
piece.
Truthfully, I’m often tempted to
re-work old pieces. Some of them are hanging in my house (some of them are even
hanging in OTHER people’s houses!); but mostly, they are rolled up and hidden
away in the dark recesses of my studio, or in cupboards or storage units.
Just before Christmas however, (on
the 23rd, to be precise!), one of my collectors (they have purchased
5 pieces so far including a large commissioned piece); wrote me and asked if I
had something approximately X size in X price range. I told them that
unfortunately, no, I didn’t. I had some bigger pieces that would be quite a bit
more.
They wrote back and said more would
be okay because it was for their sister and they didn’t mind spending more. So,
I sent a few pics of unsold work, but nothing appealed. Unfortunately (or
fortunately for me) literally all of the work I have been doing the last four
years has been commission only, so I didn’t have anything unsold.
But then I remembered that I DID have
a piece tucked away that I had been wanting to hang in our house, but wanted to
fix it up a bit before I did, despite the fact that it had been exhibited in
the condition it was currently in.
I sent the collector a pic, told them
the size and price, and they bought it. I explained that because it was the 23rd,
I wouldn’t have time to go to FedEx until the 27th, and would that
be okay.
It was.
So I dug it out of the bin it had
been in (mounted on corrugated cardboard with double sided tape and in a
plastic sleeve) and began to prepare a background for proper mounting - I chose
to do so on a plain black painted canvas.
As I prepared the canvas, and waited
for the gesso to dry, I kept looking at the piece, thinking “It really would be
improved if I would just added such and such”
“It really would look better if I
just filled in that a little.”
It really would… and before I knew
it, it was in my hands and I was stitching. *le gasp!*
So, as you can see, I added some
winter grass, I filled out the snow on the ground a bit with more French knots
and beads, and the big problem - that evergreen that seemed to be floating in
mid air, got lengthened and brought down to a more appropriate height.
Then I added another evergreen to the
right of it. If I’d had more time, I would have added a bit of another peeking
out, but I ran out of time and had to ship it.
I think it looks much better, and now
I want to re-work ALL of my old work that I don’t like.
I know that people say you should
keep the old work as it is, as a record; but who is really going to care, but
me? Nobody is ever going to be doing a retrospective of my work, future
scholars aren’t going to study it and write papers about how it’s changed as I
grew more exposed to so and so, or took a such and thus course.
And then I might actually enjoy my
work, and it wouldn’t be shoved in some bin in the back of a closet.
What are your thoughts on improving
old work?
Yay, or nay?