 |
| Boston (Reilly, 2015) |
I.
Sometimes when I make an image, I know it is failing.
The composition is off.
The clarity of the work is too opaque.
I really don't have a clue what it is I'm trying to express.
And the more I try, the worse it gets.
I don't publish an image that is failing. I keep those unfinished works quiet, private.
II.
A few days ago I read Joyce Carol Oates in The Faith of a Writer discuss failure. She writes:
The artist, perhaps more than most people, inhabits failure, degrees of failure and accommodation and compromise; but the terms of his failure are generally secret (p.52).
I thought--this blog of mine can also be a place where work is more tentative, unfinished, error-ridden. So today I placed at the top of this post an image that I tentatively titled, Boston. I'm not sure what I'm trying for, nor what the image is expressing. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
