New Year's Art Resolution #1

by Miriam Schulman, @schulmanArt

Do you have trouble keeping your New Year's resolutions? This year I made art making resolutions that I didn't think would be too hard to keep ( in other words I am still allowed to eat bread in 2012!) One of the first art making resolutions I made this year was to edit my oeuvre.

This is a common practice among artists. We take a look at our art and realize that there are pieces that are less successful or that no longer to speak to us. Van Gogh painted over many canvases as did Rembrandt. Monet also was known to have destroyed canvases at the end of his life to "edit his legacy" It is no accident that there are no "bad Monets". He made sure of that. you can see one of my old paintings peeking from underneath. This was part of a very decorative abstract geometric series I did that although they were critically well received and included in juried shows, I felt they really didn't fit in with the rest of my work. There was still a value in having done the artistic process and perhaps the painting underneath will add some texture to my new artwork.