The process of bringing a project to completion is the hardest part. It's tough to let go. When I'm inside the work I feel alive, activated, engaged. The end stage is a separate death. When is enough, enough?
These pictures are page-spreads from my book,"Swimming at the Center of the World," which is about my experiences working in China during 2005 and 2006. It's been a very long process thus far and I'm thrilled, actually, to say that the first draft is done, or almost done. So you see, at this point I'm not even close to finally finished. Right now I'm having trouble walking away from the end of the beginning.
One of the conversations we have in class is about the moment when your work no longer belongs to you. After all the sweat and anguish - about subject, style, intention, edit, color, contrast, paper, print size, and ending finally with presentation - there comes a time when I have to step back and let it go. At that moment it belongs to the universe; it isn't mine anymore.
This book project still lives at home, for now. But I need to show it around a bit and get some feedback, some distance, to start completing the loop. But it's not quite ready yet....
I've got to get away from the computer and take a walk, take a breath, let it go.
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