Most people think of unfinished paintings as abandoned. Forgotten. Works that never became what they were meant to be. Something that gets started but never finished.

But what if that's not true?

What if unfinished paintings are still alive in some way — still holding energy, still waiting, still whispering?

I've often wondered what happens to the pieces that never reach completion. The ones left in a corner of the studio, half-formed and unresolved. Some get painted over, their beginnings buried beneath new layers. Some sit in storage, waiting for a moment that may never come. Others are simply left behind.

But do they ever truly let go of us?

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The Energy of the Incomplete

Every painting begins with an impulse — an idea, a feeling, a pull toward something unseen. But not every painting finds its way to full expression.

Some get stuck. Some resist. Some refuse to be finished, as if they are waiting for something — more time, a deeper understanding, the right moment to emerge.

I've had paintings that haunted me for years, unfinished but present. Whenever I walked past them, I felt their pull. They weren't dead. They weren't forgotten. They were simply waiting.

And sometimes, when I finally returned to them, they revealed something I couldn't see before.

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When the Painting Decides Its Own Fate

There are pieces I've tried to force into being, only to find they wouldn't cooperate. The colors wouldn't blend. The composition felt wrong. The energy wasn't there.

I used to think that meant I had failed as an artist. That I had lost my creative flow or didn't know how to complete what I started.

But now, I wonder — what if some paintings choose not to be finished? What if they hold a purpose beyond our immediate understanding?

What if they exist as they are meant to — unfinished, unresolved, yet still carrying something powerful?

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Art That Lives in the In-Between

Maybe unfinished paintings belong to a different space — a liminal space, a place between what is seen and what is still forming.

Maybe they are not failures, but thresholds.

Maybe they are not abandoned, but pausing.

Maybe they were a path that was all wrong, just not the path I wanted to enter.

Some paintings return to us at the right time. Others never do. But perhaps that doesn't mean they are lost.

Perhaps some works of art exist to teach us about the beauty of the incomplete. The mystery of the unfinished. The path not taken. The power of what is still becoming.

And maybe, just maybe, some paintings are never meant to be finished at all. 🖌

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Copyright ©2024 Angela Blaha. All rights reserved.

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