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 Mary Kathryn Nagle said elsewhere, not written here
I don’t think any of my plays are done right now.

Willa Köerner, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

Others on this question

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Steve Jobs Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar
I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn’t be ours anymore.
Recorded David Sheff, Playboy Interview, February 1985 source ↗
Catherine Lacey English actress
I’m the worst about this. I often don’t know. I’ll have 14 small victories while I’m working on something. I’m like, “It’s done,” and I show it to somebody and they’re like, “Is it?” They ask me a couple questions, or I’ll realize myself like, “I think it’s done,” and then a few days later I’ll realize that, “Oh no, I’m still having ideas about it.”
Recorded Maura M. Lynch, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Richard Ford Novelist and short-story writer
I want to be able to do what I have always done which is to say, "I could do this no better. I could not make this better."
Recorded Robert Birnbaum, Interview, Identity Theory, 16 February 2002 source ↗
Marc Horowitz American artist and internet celebrity
It feels most natural to have a lot of projects in motion simultaneously. I need the freedom to initiate and abandon a variety of works, be it a painting, performance, video, or even a book project. If I come back to a piece that doesn’t resonate anymore, I might toss it out completely or turn it into “studio mud,” where it gets broken down and becomes material for something else. I know when something’s done because it clicks and just feels right.
Recorded Lindsay Howard, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

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