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 Cass McCombs said elsewhere, not written here
I mean, nothing’s ever done. I don’t think anyone knows when something is really done. There’s just doing it and not doing it. You do it until you don’t want to do it anymore. Then hopefully, someone else will take it over and keep on doing it. Songs are not really from any individual. There are all these lawsuits about plagiarism, Led Zeppelin has been going through that lately. It bums me out. The idea of intellectual property is kind of a trap. It’s just a way to get by, which I guess is fair because most of us are broke.

T. Cole Rachel, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

Others on this question

View all 67 →
Koho Yamamoto Sumi-e painter, calligrapher and teacher
Well, I feel it. If I don’t feel it just the way I want it, then I’d rather destroy it than to keep it.
Recorded Amanda Millet-Sorsa, Koho Yamamoto with Amanda Millet-Sorsa, The Brooklyn Rail, 1 April 2022 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 ↗
Laura Parnes American film director
Well, Tour continues because I exhibit it with a growing archive of performances. For instance, I have something upcoming that I’m working on at Pioneer Works with Stanley Love and his dance troupe. It’s exciting, and it keeps the project present and alive. So this particular project, Tour Without End, becomes self-fulfilling.
Recorded Brandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Angélica Negrón Puerto Rican composer
My pieces are never done, at least for me. It’s an open-ended inquiry process driven by curiosity. I might have a sense that a piece “is completed” for a premiere, or for a showcase, but there’s always the possibility of going back and revisiting it, and I think leaving it open-ended is also a way for me to keep my sanity.
Recorded Miriam Garcia, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

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