The parts, the whole, and the journey

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I was making a list of exhibitions and shows my work has been in, starting from my very first display through Peninsula Outdoor Painters (POPs) in December 2016 right after I started watercolor. As I was listing each venue, I realized it was quite a list. I would have severely underestimated the number if anyone had asked me to guess. It is good to be out there, for the work to be out there, for public consumption and reaction, and for the feeling that comes with the work being open to everyone like that - awkward, "I'm not good enough" at first, then mixed feelings about some early work, next to later, much better work, and finally being fine with the entire body of work, some good, some not so, but all out there, in its evolution for everyone to see, and being comfortable with that display. Quite an evolution in internal feelings about the display, as well as evolution in the work.
So, as I made this list, I realized something else quite startling.
The list of venues showed where my work as a body of work had been - up here, down from there, and then up there. But a single painting? A very different journey.
If I were to focus on a single painting, for example, this one: Hakone Gate, I would realize that it was in my possession from birth for a very short time. With this painting, I realized that I didn't hold it in very high stead when I finished painting it. After a few weeks, it looked so much better and I could see good things I had done that I could learn from for future paintings. It didn't make it into any exhibit before SVOS came up, which was its first public display, and it sold on the first weekend, right after I had fallen in love with it and truly appreciated it.
Another painting, Brooklyn Bridge, was with me for an even shorter period from conception to sale. Each painting's journey is so different from the journey of my body of work, which has seen many walls, many locations, and continues to be "a body of work".
I should make graphic timelines for each painting, and see what the timelines put together might mean, as a comprehensive graphic to read from and understand - a true sum of the parts adding up to the whole, but a very different whole, as the component parts are never quite constant. Something is being sold, and new paintings are being born.
These are the 6 paintings I sold over the two SVOS weekends.
   

   Hakone Gate                 Brooklyn Bridge               Still Life with Succulent

 
St. Nicholas, Los Altos             Hofn Boats, Iceland              Mission Santa Clara de Asis

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