Between IX and the end of the year, I assess how I’ve been doing my work, and I reconsider what next year will look like.  What can I do differently? Where am I hindering myself? What have I jotted down on notes to save for later, but forgotten?

In preparation for 2026, one of these things I’m contemplating is my threshold for what deserves to be made.

 

“Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

 

Creating art is a difficult path that requires you to constantly strive for new heights, regularly out-performing previous creations as you add new skills to your toolbelt and new work to your portfolio. It is great advice to shoot for the moon!  But what if sometimes you’re interested in painting stars? Sure, not every painting can be a moon…but maybe sometimes they shouldn’t even be trying to be the moon.

I suspect many of us start each painting hoping that it’ll be our next best painting ever, and if it fails to live up to that, it’ll “land among the stars” as one of the best. It’ll sell a lot of prints, maybe folks will scramble to own the original, it can be submitted to annuals and become a long-time resident in our portfolio.

Early on in the process, we imagine that potential. For me, I will work and rework thumbnails in an attempt to optimize the composition, the gesture, the values, everything, to make it the best it can be within my capability. Lots of ideas get left on the cutting room floor for fear of them not living up to standard. I’ve gone from spending about 24 hours-per-painting on the planning and design a few years ago, to regularly exceeding 80-120 hours. (This is everything that happens before paint touches the canvas.) As a result, I am embarrassed to discover (and to share) that I only finished 5 paintings this year. I am disciplined with my time, so my jaw hit the floor when I realized it. I may feel very good about the results of that effort…but it’s only 5 paintings!

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…five?

Like an idea you have to write down to get past it to better ideas, maybe a painting has to get done and out of the way of greater things beyond it. The path is through, not around. Creativity may flow better with more yeses.

My friend Kaysha Siemens once pointed out to me that it’s okay to create a piece of artwork just because I want to; every single painting doesn’t have to be reaching for some lofty goal. Artwork like this may lean into the joy of a texture or of shapes, for example. I struggle with this, but as my eyes bug out looking at an abysmal 2025 painting count, I think back to this conversation now.

I did put that into practice shortly after our conversation, but lessons usually need repetition to stick (and it didn’t!). On a camping trip a few years ago, I came across a prickly pear cactus with extensive cactus moth damage. I love the way that the nopales face various directions to catch and bounce the light and illuminate with blues and gold from the sky and sun. The shape of the moth holes in the cactus reminded me of the chalcedony around a geode slice.

Amethyst, Acrylic on wood

Some opuntia have a purplish hue, and amethyst catches light in fun ways to paint. That’s it. There’s no deeper meaning, no narrative.

It’s a naughty word to call art decorative, and I worried that’s all this was. The painting wasn’t trying to be innovative or dynamic, it was just an expression of joy in the subject matter. But I found it was easier to experiment, play, and innovate with a piece that wasn’t so precious and didn’t have the weight of the world on it.

Amethyst was the first painting I did a highly-saturated underpainting for, to paint more opaquely atop. I allowed myself to paint much looser than normal and took joy in letting the colors vibrate more. Some of these things I’ve carried forward, and others I need a couple more rounds before they stick.

Either way, I am further along my path for having created it.

‘Shoot for the moon’ doesn’t exclusively deter non-ambitious artwork…there’s another kind of creation that gets pushed to the sideline when every pursuit is done with the subconscious intent of outdoing previous work.

The moon dominates the night sky. It grabs the most attention- not just executed to the best of your abilities, but selected for its impactful nature and punched up in value, color, etc. Oh, you’ll sell a lot of prints of that one.

Don’t get distracted – I’m not talking about literal stars and moons here.

But some art is intended to express restraint. Unassuming, subtle, delicate… those are worthy traits in a piece of art. A beautiful, quietly twinkling star, not trying to compete with the moon. We can strive to make it the best it can be, while still letting it be itself.

How ridiculous would it be if great composers stopped composing chamber music once they penned their first symphonies? Or if they skipped right from the first to the third movements because the Lento/Largo/Adagio isn’t exciting enough?

Earlier this year, there was a painting I was in the early stages of planning, and I hoped for the piece to stand out from the others it would hang with. I kept feeling the pressure to push it more vibrant, more bold, but that’s not what this painting wanted to be. Should a painting like this not exist, in favor of more colorful, bigger, attention-grabbing artwork? I don’t want to be running an art arms race.

In 2026, I fully intend to become more forgiving in what I allow to become a painting. I understand that some artists are spaghetti-throwers while others wrestle their artwork into submission, and I’m definitely the latter and have gotten more-so over time. I’m proud of the results it gets, and in the past I’ve considered it a strength, but this year I’m going to try to throw more spaghetti (or, to get back to the original metaphor, paint more stars). Maybe these thoughts inspire you to paint more stars too. Certainly more art is better than less, and maybe we can find the best of both worlds.