Inspiration Fridays! What’s Lurking in Your Half-Finished Masterpiece?
What’s Lurking in Your Half-Finished Masterpiece?
Do you have a chair in your studio? You know, that place for staring at half-finished paintings, wondering if you have what it takes to bring them to life. It’s not the blank canvas, but the ugly moments in the middle when everything feels wrong. That’s when the coercive voice of resistance whispers: “Give up, it’s no good, better to leave it unfinished”.
“Art begins with resistance—at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.” – André Gide
I’ve heard the whispering of resistance. When an idea feels bigger than me, bigger than I imagine I can be. When I question if I have any of what it takes to bring my vision to its fruition. And the answer feels like it’s going to be a hard “No”.
Yesterday I was only able to paint three brush strokes. The paint didn’t want to leave the brush. Each mark felt like a leap of faith, and the results weren’t ready to show themselves.
Watching paint dry.
There are times to walk away. But there is also a time to keep working, even when it’s hard, when it feels unnatural, when we just don’t want to do it. The breakthroughs happen.
Pushing through the struggle has taught me that the best work often comes from those moments of discomfort. The richness of art doesn’t just live in the final product, it lives in the layers underneath.
We don’t create masterpieces by gliding through the easy parts. We create them by leaning into the unknown, stepping into the dark, and trusting that something beautiful is on the other side.