How Long Did It Take? The Impossible Question Every Artist Faces
In this email I will attempt to briefly answer one of the most common questions I get about my art...
Which you will soon see why it is so difficult to answer.
"How long did it take you to make this piece?"
My short answer is usually something like "depends on the piece... some can be a couple hours, and others can be multiple paintings sessions, each a couple hours... for a total of 10 painting hours."
This measly little answer assumes that the time spent putting paint to canvas is the only time I'm working on a piece.
Which is far from the truth.
Let's take my recently completed Unseen series, which I just finished on Saturday.
According to my records, I worked on those 7 pieces on 16 separate days, spanning 5 weeks.
I first worked on them for 10 days with some breaks in between, then I went into the creative project slump, commonly called "resistance", and didn't touch them for 10 days.
I finally came out of that, and worked on them for 6 days in a row until I finished them.
I'd estimate an average of 5 hours each of those 16 working days so that's about 80 hours for 7 pieces, which is just over 11 hours per piece.
Still with me? Good, cuz it gets better from here.
Those 5 hours in the studio each day wasn't all painting time... I'd say 2 hours on average was testing colors and mixing paint, and the other 3 was putting paint on canvas.
There's more.
What about the time OUTSIDE of the studio, outside of those "working hours" where I'm still working on the pieces?
The times when I'm going for a walk and I'm thinking about them, or when I'm at the gym thinking about them, coming up with ideas, considering different concepts and colors.
What about when I intentionally take a nap or meditate or go sit inside a sauna in an attempt to rest and recharge my system... so I can be ready to continue birthing the largest art project I've ever done?
I started painting the series towards the end of September... but what about the two months before that when I was considering the concept for the series, drawing inspiration from everything I saw, letting it incubate inside of me...
Driving to buy materials and moving studios and making space for these 7 oversize pieces?
Even the dreams I had about this series?
How long does all that add up to?
There's more!
What about all the years of paintings and meditation that have helped me be able to paint the way I do? Does that count? Cuz technically they impact this series.
I could argue that I've been working on this series for the past decade.
For my whole life, really.
I could argue that every experience I've ever had is influencing this series of works.
I could argue the same for each and every art piece I've ever made.
No wonder it's so hard for people to make art... why it's so scary to share it with the world... why it's so difficult to put a price tag on it and say goodbye to each piece.
Each piece is an intertwined being with the artist's heart and soul spanning years and lifetimes of experience.
If you're still with me, kudos to you.
I share this mostly in an attempt to help people appreciate everything around us that was artfully designed by someone... because we need more of it.
In other news, a nice little cold front has finally graced South Florida.
PS: See my new series in person next Friday.
PPS: This email wasn't brief. Oh well. Could've been way longer too.