Why the corner cabinet is not finished yet...

Blogging is a curious endeavor; typing away, striving one's best to convey current cerebral content with intermittent belief that, while reading, anyone will easily catch your drift. Distant images of your old English prof. stumbling upon your blog, perusing w/awe and admiration.

Could be blogging to no one. Could be blogging to THE WORLD. Apparently, it's not the point, it's not the reason for the blog.

On most occasions when I've moved into action with an anticipated outcome on the horizon, I would have been more productive taking a nap.

Yesterday's efforts did not produce a finished anything. Did make headway. Each passing day finds me closer to the grand finale, and further away from the "me" who began this "weekend" project, a few months ago. It's the little things that slow up progress. Like yesterday when I was ready to hang four cabinet doors, built from scratch, design all mine, satisfyingly finished. Due to complexity of "learning-as-I-go" design, the hinges placement can only be on one side, in order for the doors to fit. Guess I was "somewhere else" when I had attached the hinges and pulls.

The world of, "I can do anything" dawned once I realized that I have to be willing, even content with taking apart what I had previously committed all my time/heart and soul to assemble.
This is why I dropped out of sewing class when I discovered I had machine-stitched-up both sleeves of my class project, so that I had two options: Take it apart, and start over, or find a girl with no arms who would like a new dress. (Actually three,) the third option being to trash it, and I did. I am sure my sewing-class dropout status disappointed my parents...esp. my mother, but I have no recollection of this. Years later, I mastered the art of sewing, and on my own terms, in my own time.

I believe the realization that one's work must be dismantled and restarted, while disappointing, evokes the perception that any prior efforts were just time wasted. Not true. There is more value in the process than the outcome. Because if you learn to love the process, the outcome is always grand.

As a visual artist, I have experienced difficulty in understanding the relationship of artist to work of art. I have several paintings that are no longer in my collection, as they were purchased by parties with whom I've lost contact. And even if I were able to, I would certainly NOT call someone with something like, "Hey, remember me, the one who painted that painting you bought? Well, I was wondering if I could just come look at it, or perhaps borrow it for a bit, so I could hang it on MY wall...it is really MINE, because I was the one who painted it."

The pieces I retained, for whatever reason, are either in storage where "I know they are safe," (and what good is this?) or hanging in my house, and have long (since initial placement) ceased to be anything more than an object the right size and color for its location. Like when I was growing up, EVERY home had a piano in the living room, some had Wurlitzer organs in the dens...most of which became furniture-of-custom, kind of like an ashtray or lamp on the table. "And this is the living room...how lovely! What, no PIANO???," graciously supressing inner thoughts of, "they must not be able to afford one, pity." Many "piano-homes" made the kids take lessons, like it or not. I guess the piano was a holdout from the prev. generation. They socialized around pianos, no TV, probably few radio programs. And so, each generation carries a bit of superfluous "custom/tradition" from the previous one, and most times, the custom retained is of little use to the new generation, so it becomes an "antique."

So value the Artist receives "from" the work exists in the making. (Unless consideration of accolades is included, and is there value in such?) Maybe, when the compliments compel the artist to do more. Caution should be taken to avoid laurel-resting, for the obvious reasons...

Though I still contemplate, I've arrived at the conclusion that once I have finished painting a painting, it then belongs to the world of "things". I no longer have a relationship with it.

So I can not remember what I set out to write today, but that's okay. I will today be torn away from my "significant other," (this unfinished corner bookcase/entertainment center, a photo will be posted upon completion,) and I will be out in the world of people, which restores me to rightful thinking, prevents me from becoming a total loon.