I have to clean the sides of three pieces, and paint two more. Finishing of all six will be Saturday and Sunday.

I’m good taking just six new pieces. (I have to be; I’m exhausted.)

That said? Some of my best work in a while. Even Steve, who has seen almost every piece I’ve done was telling his family that this is some beautiful work.

The general style hasn’t changed – I’m still using the same palette I worked out years ago. (Still a few colors I’d like to add, too.)

There is more intention with each piece. More planning. It’s slower, overall. Worth it, but the working out how everything needs to fit together to get certain results has it’s challenging points. (At 1am, for example.)

There is a voice that says that more people will roll their eyes and sneer at all of this – name calling, insults, and condescension behind my back – that the frenemies are rooting for me to fail, to realize that I am a piss poor painter and should just quit.

That sound track, the Hater Mix Tape, it’s a driving force behind why I don’t quit. Not so much now to prove them wrong, but to dig deeper, to refine the craft and skills, improve composition, to take my work from clumsy mumbled incoherence to poetry.

Am I there? I doubt I ever will think I am. But life’s in the journey, not the results.

Even when the journey is burning midnight oil in the last days before a show to create new work in a city I’ve never shown in. It could be a total flop, or it could be a sparkling success, or it could just be a blast and great experience.

It’s worth it, whatever it ends up being. I’ve learned, grown, and dug deeper for these pieces, and am a better painter for it.

Exhausted, but a better painter.

Now to just mute that Hater Mix Tape…