Color, or Maybe Form

Painted large on the wall at the Diebenkorn exhibit in San Francisco is a list of Notes To Myself on Beginning a Painting. I tried to take a picture of it, but was stopped by a guard: no photography allowed. "But," he said, "here is a copy for you," and produced a xeroxed sheet from his pocket. It was #2 that spoke to me:

The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to be valued--except as a stimulus for further moves.

I often feel that I am stuck in that pretty position with my work, caught up in the preciousness of something that may not be quite as far along as it could be.