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 Thomas Hooper said elsewhere, not written here
I’ve been teaching myself to use pen and ink, like dip pens and ink. I’m getting to a point where I’m comfortable. I grew up looking at a lot of etchings, and it’s a little dream to be able to draw some of those etchings, so that’s what I’m doing, trying to teach myself. But there’ll come a point where I’m like, “I’ve got to leave this alone or I’m just going to screw it up.” And it looks done or quite often I’ll ask my wife what she thinks. I’ll be like, “What do you think?” And she’s like, “Don’t do anything else to it.” I’m like, “But I really want to do this.” And sometimes I’ll listen and sometimes I won’t.

Brandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

Others on this question

View all 69 →
Lucy Ives Writer
Usually I’m overcome with sadness and fear, actually. And when I have that feeling where the bottom drops out of things, I know that it’s done.
Recorded Maddie Crum, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Loraine James British electronic producer and musician
Most EPs I’ve done have just been for fun, Bandcamp stuff, so I just stop when…I guess with EPs, it’s easier. It’s like, “Oh, EPs are usually four or five songs.” I know it will end within that bracket.
Recorded Max Freedman, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Natalie Mering Singer-songwriter, recording as Weyes Blood
For me, nothing’s ever really done. I have to be cut off because I could record infinitely, so usually a record is done when it has to be, with some kind of created deadline. Or if somebody I’m working with says it’s done, that helps, because I’m just so unhinged that I need limitation. You can make a really great record with limitations. Limitations help incubate a specific thing. If you got to do whatever you want for as long as you want, you might not have that kind of magic.
Recorded Gary Canino, The Creative Independent, 26 June 2017 source ↗
David Lynch Film director, screenwriter and painter
It just, um, starts feeling correcter and correcter until it's done.
Recorded Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 25 February 2007 source ↗

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