The Unfinished as a State of Grace

I used to think unfinished work was a failure — something that needed to be resolved, fixed, or hidden away. Now I’m starting to see it differently. The unfinished is alive. It hums with possibility. It carries energy that a finished piece sometimes loses when it’s too polished or too certain of itself.

When I walk through my studio and see all the half-painted canvases leaning against the wall, I don’t see mistakes anymore. I see stages of becoming — proof that I showed up. Every layer, every scraped mark, every pause is part of the conversation. The unfinished holds space for what’s still unfolding. Maybe grace is found not in completing something, but in allowing it to remain open.

“Developed through a collaborative process between the artist and AI (ChatGPT), then refined through personal editing and intuition.”