in the act of stretching and putting together a big canvas, there is a commitment to making it work. by the time you have the canvas assembled and are ready to paint, you have already invested a significant amount of time and money and you must trust that it will come together.

but sometimes it doesn’t. it's the worst when you have to throw away a big canvas and chalk it up to learning. it is easy to get frustrated and mad. i used to get very discouraged when that happened (and it has happened a lot).

but now i am more gentle with myself. i understand that failing is not failing, it is learning. failing is a good thing. failing means i am reaching past my comfort zone and i am trying new things.

and i have also learned that failure is a lot easier to handle when i don’t have quite so much to lose. a while ago, when big paintings were not coming together, and i was lost in the work and failing every time i tried anything, i pulled back. i realized that i needed a lot less pressure on myself, and i needed more room to learn without the devastation of steadily pouring hours and piles of paint into huge paintings destined for the bonfire. so i went tiny: really tiny. some of them (like this one) were 2 inches by 2 inches. that seemed to be the place where i could find what i was looking for. i experimented. i tried the same idea over and over and over. i used a bunch of different supplies and techniques and ideas, and loads of them failed.

but some of them sang. and then i discovered that it is another thing entirely to translate tiny victories into big paintings, but i am learning that, too. they are coming. and the in the meantime, i have a lovely, curated collection of teeny tiny paintings.

and now i am offering them for sale, one by one, in emails here and there. i have nothing but love and gratitude for every single one of these, and it’s hard to let them go. but i’m delighted to report that it’s getting kind of crowded in here.

click here to buy this painting, and if it’s not available, then someone else must have clicked first. more to come. join list here to get new work in your inbox.