At the end of her career, Georgia O’Keefe re-purchased and destroyed several of her paintings she wasn’t pleased with. Similarly, Claude Monet took a knife to 15 waterlily paintings he had created for an exhibition so the world would never see them. Michelangelo did it. So did the painter Agnes Martin. Jasper Johns was guilty, as well.
We need to be careful when we look back at stuff we've done in the past. We don't compare it to the standards we had back then, but to the standards we hold in the present. We also forget what our skill and experience levels were at the time. What has happened in the past is what it is. The good, the not so good, and even the really bad. I agree that we should not dwell on it. But I don't think we should spend an ounce of effort trying to deny it happened or hide it from others (they will find it anyway). It happened. Accept it. Learn from it. Move on. If you're working on something today that you don't feel meets your standards, don't release it. Fix it so it does, remembering that nothing is ever perfect.
Are you the keep up in the closet type, David, or destroy them completely?
Or would you display them all to show progress?
Sounds like you would certainly learn from them... so in your mind you have a healthy display of a work in progress... but what about the physical work itself?
I kind of live by the adage, that was yesterday, what are you going to do for me today? My reply to this post was in agreement with the exception of spending mental energy trying to destroy or hide previous work from yourself and others. By doing so, you assign it value (positive or negative) and I think this saps energy that you should be putting into the present.
We need to be careful when we look back at stuff we've done in the past. We don't compare it to the standards we had back then, but to the standards we hold in the present. We also forget what our skill and experience levels were at the time. What has happened in the past is what it is. The good, the not so good, and even the really bad. I agree that we should not dwell on it. But I don't think we should spend an ounce of effort trying to deny it happened or hide it from others (they will find it anyway). It happened. Accept it. Learn from it. Move on. If you're working on something today that you don't feel meets your standards, don't release it. Fix it so it does, remembering that nothing is ever perfect.
Are you the keep up in the closet type, David, or destroy them completely?
Or would you display them all to show progress?
Sounds like you would certainly learn from them... so in your mind you have a healthy display of a work in progress... but what about the physical work itself?
I kind of live by the adage, that was yesterday, what are you going to do for me today? My reply to this post was in agreement with the exception of spending mental energy trying to destroy or hide previous work from yourself and others. By doing so, you assign it value (positive or negative) and I think this saps energy that you should be putting into the present.