I’m excited to be leading an Studio Discussion Meetup for the Surface Design Association called UnFinished Business next month.
If you’re anything like me, your studio probably holds more than finished work. It also holds the pieces that almost happened, the experiments that stalled, the ambitious ideas that became overwhelming, the works that quietly found their way onto a shelf with the promise, “I’ll come back to this someday.”
This meetup is an invitation to do exactly that.
Before we gather, participants will submit an image and a brief description of an unfinished project. During our time together, we’ll look at each work as a community, offering fresh perspectives, asking thoughtful questions, and exploring possibilities that the artist may not have seen while working alone.
One of the questions I’ll ask to begin our conversation is:
“What made you stop working on this piece, and what would need to happen for you to start again?”
I love this question because it isn’t really about finishing a project. It’s about understanding the moment where momentum was lost and discovering what might help us move forward.
As artists, we spend so much time chasing the next idea that we sometimes forget the value hidden in the ones we’ve left behind. What if that unfinished work simply needed a different conversation? A new set of eyes? A little encouragement?
My hope is that UnFinished Business becomes more than a critique session. I hope it becomes a space where we reconnect with our own creative instincts, support one another through challenges, and celebrate the possibility that some of our strongest work may already be waiting for us in the studio.
I can’t wait to see what we uncover together.
