{"id":17796,"date":"2021-02-28T02:55:49","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T10:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/?p=17796"},"modified":"2021-02-28T00:07:41","modified_gmt":"2021-02-28T08:07:41","slug":"when-its-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/when-its-done\/","title":{"rendered":"When It\u2019s Done"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Is this fantastical coral sculpture by Lisa Stevens<\/a> complete? When I first saw it, I felt like the orange fans needed to encircle it more. Then, after looking it over, liking it regardless of that initial thought, it struck me that it is as complete as it needs to be. It\u2019s representative of coral, which is never complete in the real world. It is an organic structure that is constantly building itself and so having this open side gives that room for that potential growth, conceptually speaking, of course. And it scores well in design elements and principles!<\/p><\/div>\n

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When do you know a piece is finished? It certainly can\u2019t be that magical moment when it comes out just as you hoped, just as you saw it in your mind. When does that ever happen? And it\u2019s not like there\u2019s some established design tenet or measurement we can take that tells us, yes, this is done, this is perfect, there is nothing else you could do to make this better. Because, chances are, we will forever look at it and see the bit we aren\u2019t happy with, contemplate what we could have done better, and see it as lesser than what we thought it should be.<\/p>\n

(Not that we aren\u2019t sometimes over the moon with what we create. They are rather like children to us, aren\u2019t they? So, we don\u2019t always mind the flaws, the incongruities, the less-than-perfect execution. Sometimes we love them for it. Luckily, most of our viewers and admirers don\u2019t see the imperfections at all.)<\/p>\n

The fact is, no piece of art is ever completely done because no piece of art is perfect. Yet, we usually equate completion with perfection. Well, we also equate completion with deadlines, throwing up our hands and saying, This is all I can do. It will have to be good enough.<\/em><\/p>\n

But, barring those deadline driven ideas of completion, how DO you know when your work is done? Well, you can ask yourself a few questions:<\/p>\n