"Untitled"

There’s a kind of pressure to name things to give it/them rational context--paintings, especially. As if naming locks it into something real. As if it’s not real unless it fits into a conversation.

But here’s the thing:
This painting? I couldn’t tell you what it is.
It’s not a place. Not a feeling I can cleanly name. Not a memory I could write down and hand to you.
It’s layers. Color. Movement. A few lucky moments where the brush hit just right. And it's one of the few pieces of my work I genuinely like. That! That's the hard part of producing for me, liking what I make. Often I show up and make. While I‘m making I think what I'm working on sucks [AND SUCKS LOUD]. But I continue with the tasks of making. I can rarely come back later and enjoy the work.

Anyway.

More often than not, naming a piece like this feels like naming a breeze or the pattern in a puddle. It’s fleeting. Provisional. Sometimes I make something to see where it goes—and when it’s done, I don’t always know what just happened. Or, I set a piece of work aside, unfinished, because I don’t want to mess up its progress.

It doesn't need a name to matter.