How do you know when a piece of work is finished?

Originally asked

The Creative Independent, to working artists, its interview series

A repeated process question in The Creative Independent, asked across visual art, music, writing, performance, and mixed media.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Tony Cragg said elsewhere, not written here
Sometimes some of the things I’ve been working on for years and years, they’re just not getting any better or not going anywhere, so they fade away. And sometimes you start something, and within a few days, it develops enough that it feels complete. Each piece is different and develops itself in a different way. Some artists make the same thing for 50 years, and that doesn’t interest me. My current show at Lisson Gallery will be my 18 th with this gallery, I’ve been working with them since 1974, and all the shows have been different. You don’t repeat a show. So this solo show is comprised of pieces I’ve made in the last three years.

The Talks, 7 January 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 67 →
David Ostrowski Abstract painter
A piece is finished when I don’t have anything more to say. My works are suggestions and I tend to create series of works to avoid routine. Of course I test every painting for its legitimacy. Worst case the canvas gets torn, painted or pasted over.
Recorded Julian Brimmers, The Creative Independent, 15 March 2018 source ↗
André Aciman Writer and professor
Well, if you write the way I do, which means that you start something and you rewrite it, especially the beginning part, you rewrite it time and time and time again, at some point you feel, not that it’s beyond repair, but that there’s nothing more you can do to fix it. In other words, as far as you’re concerned, that’s what you were going to write.
Recorded Maddie Crum, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Heba Kadry Mastering engineer
Something is never done. If time and money and deadlines were no object, people would tweak until the cows came home. Ultimately, I would like to think something is done when I master it and I send it off and I’m so stoked about it. I feel like, “Wow, I really brought this one home.” And then I get the same feedback from the artist, that it is just beyond their imagination. Where it comes back to them, and they get excited about the mixes again. Or if there was something they were worried about, and it gets addressed and sounds better than they would’ve thought.
Recorded Leah Mandel, The Creative Independent, 10 September 2019 source ↗
Jessy Lanza Singer, producer and DJ
It really comes down to instincts. If I feel good about it and the people that I trust that are listening to it feel good about it, then it’s good to go. But it’s definitely just a feeling you get in your gut that it’s done, and it’s time to either release it or can it and move on.
Recorded Max Freedman, The Creative Independent, 30 August 2023 source ↗

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