I have a little ritual that I perform on New Years Eve that cleanses the frustrations of the ending year and opens the way for the future. It's not original to me: many artists throughout the ages have done this.
I rip up old paintings.
Some are paintings I've held on to for years - the Linus blankets that really need to go. Some are just really bad paintings. I'll admit, the first time I contemplated doing this it felt like a sacrilege - like writing in a library book. I worked my way through a stack of paintings and finally found - well, one that I thought I could do away with.
But I have to tell you, once I got past that first cut with the knife it was so liberating I went back and found a few more. Paintings that I had struggled with - ripped! Assignments - into shreds. I saved the stretchers - but the canvases with their thick globs of paint and those compositions that just never worked and the styles I'd tried out and discarded - those all went into the trash. Liberating. Out with the bad karma - in with the good.
So Happy Ripping Day. And on to a fabulous, productive, and positive New Year.
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