The Importance of Abandoning Your Art

"In the eyes of those who anxiously seek perfection, a work is never truly completed—a word that for them has no sense—but abandoned; and this abandonment, of the book to the fire or to the public, whether due to weariness or to a need to deliver it for publication, is a sort of accident, comparable to the letting-go of an idea that has become so tiring or annoying that one has lost all interest in it."

-Paul Valery, La Nouvelle Revue Française, March 1933,

writing about his poem “The Cemetery by the Sea.”

(Translator: Rosalie Maggio.)

 

I know photographers and models who revisit their portfolios, finding gems that represent a style, a technique, or even a face and body very different than what anyone could hire from them today. Some of us re-edit those older images. Some of us re-do a particular hair-style (or color). Some of us pull out and shoot with equipment from the bag and shelves cluttering our studios and office spaces. Some of us pursue reconstruction that, if not restoring the earlier topography, then at least redecorate to fit newer preferences.

I’m inspired to write this morning by the comment of an assistant, editor, and – given time and greater acquaintance – friend. Regarding a post-processing project, she said, “I suppose I finished it, I was really indecisive on what I wanted to do.” There are many reasons I can imagine for being indecisive. And perhaps some of her reasons are the same that have kept me from completing a project for a client in a more timely fashion than has become the case. In fact, the many examples, formats, and other considerations about the content of this post threaten to delay it so much that it will never get posted.

One example, then, I hope will suffice. Rather than simply commenting to my assistant, “I remember that someone has said something like, ‘No work of art is ever completed, only abandoned,’” my particular combination of neurodivergence and mental illness compelled me to search for the origins of what the quote actually is. So, you have the internet’s best guess above.

The image I’ll select to accompany this post (which may prevent it from ever being posted, since I’ll want to select, and then possibly re-edit one that “perfectly” illustrates my point) should be one I’ve abandoned, allowing it to exist in its current form as its final form. And now that I’ve written 80% of my 500 word maximum, I am thinking about the ways that this blog allows for me to peer “out of the closet,” and which image represents that reality pretty well. Hope you find it as perfect as I do. Which is to say, it’s still imperfect. But, as I hope you will do with some of your work today, I am abandoning it to you so that I can move forward with more of the editing of a client’s project I should have already delivered, and so will be abandoned.