changes
Everything changes. Some changes we welcome and look forward to. Some we avoid and abhor.
Sometimes the change comes easy, with lightness and relief. Sometimes it's heavy. Burdensome. Sometimes we bend and buckle under the weight.
Sometimes in the process, the work, too, starts to change. It shifts and it pitches. It becomes something different. Something distant. Something other than it ever was. Other than anything it's ever been before.
Sometimes it's addition. The sum of things put together with intention. A total that becomes something more.
But, sometimes it's constriction. It's contrition. It's remorse. It's the drift of something slipping. Something forgetful. When you remember the work, but the work doesn't remember you.
Some things are lost before we’re ready. Some times home is a place we can't go back to. Some things that leave, there's no regaining. Just the slow work of learning to live in the vacancy.
It's easy to appreciate your work for what it was. It's not hard to appreciate it for what we hope it will be. But the challenge of every maker is to love it in between.
P.S. The moving sale continues at my old shop, use discount code MOVEOUT for 25% off.
P.P.S - ICAD 329-332 - all the collages featured are available for purchase here.
Great points on change, Duane. Thinking of what was, is, and will be especially with the change of seasons the past several weeks from Winter to Spring. The calendar and reality tell vastly different stories. I like your final points about it being "easy to appreciate your work for what it was. It's not hard to appreciate it for what we hope it will be. But the challenge of every maker is to love it in between."
This got me thinking of a Zen story of 2 monks arguing about seeing a flag moving in the wind. One monk says it's the flag moving and the other monk says it's the wind moving. A senior monk happens by and says, it's neither - it's your mind moving. Perhaps the past and future are the flag and the wind. Now is the mind...in your example maybe this is the love in between both past and future. Thanks for sharing.
Wow