Lately, I have been reworking paintings I have had sitting around and don’t show anymore because they represent an earlier body of work/way of painting, or pieces I was “finished with” - had reached the endpoint of a process, felt I could not work on them any more - but maybe never satisfied with. They may be done, but did not solve the problem I set out to, or not in a way I was happy with. Some were pieces that got damaged and could not be effectively repaired.

Mostly, when I rework an old painting, I don’t cover the work completely. I keep elements - it varies, from just hints of the older piece to large elements borrowed heavily from the earlier work, especially in reworks from series where I incorporated elements of embroidery, like my Net and Nest series. The embroidery leaves a distinct impression even if I cover it up with medium or layers of paint - it can never be removed or covered completely, so always remains an element I must contend with in one way or another.

So I think of these paintings as a collaboration with my earlier self - someone who worked differently and with different thoughts than I do. It’s great to go back and appreciate those elements that I incorporated before, just as I’d appreciate the work of any artist I’d choose to collaborate with. To look at a piece with fresh eyes, maybe not more objective than before, but with a different way of looking. (Sometimes I will go back and examine these older pieces and wonder how I made some of the marks I did, or how I created the texture. Some elements really do feel like they were done by a different artist!)

When I go back to these pieces, though, it’s not usually to fix a specific problem. It’s usually to create something entirely new - but something unlike a painting I’d create from scratch. It’s a hybrid - incorporating elements of past bodies of work, things I may have moved on from, but still find meaningful, and new things that interest me.

This is a one-way collaboration - you can only go forward in time, so I can respond to this in one direction, but past-me can’t look at present-me’s work and respond to that. Forever onwards and upwards. I wish in some ways I could look ahead to future collaborations with myself, and see what future-me might want to do to improve a current piece. As I feel (and hope!) that my painting and technique are always improving - the more I work, the better I get? - it also feels kind of impossible to know what I’ll be interested in in the future.