It feels most natural to have a lot of projects in motion simultaneously. I need the freedom to initiate and abandon a variety of works, be it a painting, performance, video, or even a book project. If I come back to a piece that doesn’t resonate anymore, I might toss it out completely or turn it into “studio mud,” where it gets broken down and becomes material for something else. I know when something’s done because it clicks and just feels right.

I don’t know. Right now I’m just in the insecurity portion and nothing feels good enough. But I think one way that I can answer this is, if I go back to it and I have a little chuckle with myself, then I feel like it’s good. I still think it’s funny. There are some parts of this new book that I look back at and I feel mortified. There are some parts where I’m like, “Wow, this person really gets me. This me really gets me.” And it feels good. Because even though it’s me, I’m really connecting with it. And hopefully, someone else will feel that way.

The quote of “unfinished, but complete” was first introduced to my lexicon when I was studying the drawings of Michelangelo. I read about his work, and one of the art historians of the time said his drawings were purposefully left unfinished, but there was a sense of completeness to them. That was the philosophy I used as my religion, which was to create something that appeared unfinished but had a spiritual completeness to it.

It’s paying attention to the energy of the piece. If it feels really distant from me, I know that there’s an irreconcilable problem between me and the work, and I need to just put it to the side until it wants to come back to me. If I wake up really excited to work on something, then it’s still present in me. If not, I put it to the side without fearing, because often those things come back much, much better a decade or two decades later. It’s really allowing the work not to just be the work at hand, but the longer process of making something, making a life and making a life in art. So, knowing that even if this story, I tried to do this story when I was 19 and it didn’t work and I kept trying 26 and then 34 and then 42.