In a conversation with an artist, I got to talking about waste.
I said something like:
I wasted so much time on that painting! Hours and hours of many days devoted to this picture that fell flat on its face and died. I wasted so much paint and linen making that huge painting that failed! How depressing!
And he said something like:
It’s really not about wasting. You can’t really be economical. It’s about the dream.
Now I’m left with questions like: what is the dream? What is that exciting vision I saw before starting a picture? What is the big question? What is the force behind my work?
In the face of these questions, wasting paint and time does sort of lose relevancy. The investigation of the dream seems a more important focus.