"Letdown" isn't exactly the right word but there is certainly a feeling of anxiousness, of twitching, at least for me. To be finished with 30 pieces for the show this coming weekend, after months and months of work, is a strange feeling: a mix of relief with an edge of "...did I leave the iron on when I left the house this morning." But the work has been dropped off at the River Gallery and the only thing left for me is the opening on Saturday evening.
With all the work out, I started to clean the studio up a bit, after months and months of pulling out every tube of paint, every rubber stamp, every book, pamphlet, or other piece of paper that might work as the under-collage. I noticed a few months back that everyone of those things, as they were put on my work table to be used, started marching closer and closer to me, narrowing my actual work space down to barely enough for each piece. Piles of cut up scraps and bits and bobs of who-knows-what started little communities on the floor. And last week, as I was racing to the end of the work, my inside voice started with a new want, "...it's going to feel so good to clean this mess up..." And so it is.
The work table with the rapidly advancing tubes of paint, bottles of solvent, ink, gesso, fiber paste, and matte medium. The tools getting ready to revolt!