Leonardo da Vinci said “A work of art is never finished, only abandoned".
And so at what point in our creative process should we give ourselves permission to abandon the art?
This has been something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently because I’m working on a few new ways for creators to connect with each other and I’m riding a thin line between “make it better” and “release it to the world”.
When I look at the greatest creators, their work wasn't finished when it was perfect.
It was finished when it could speak.
You see…in many ways art is communication between the Creator and the Audience. And at the heart of communication is relationship building.
And so, to me, the art isn’t formed in the studio. It’s formed in that relationship between the creator and the audience.
It’s hard for me to ever even feel “done” until the other side of that conversation exists.
When someone receives it.
The work speaks in that encounter…
Between what we make and what someone brings to it.
Their grief. Their memory. Their perspective.
And that’s why perfection isn't the goal. There’s no perfect relationship.
You can only show up honestly and see what happens.
Vulnerability in any type of relationship is what makes experiencing each other possible.
So the most enduring art is the most available.
Available to be entered. Available to mean something. Available to the stranger who needs.
As a creator, our real job isn’t to finish the work.
It’s to make the work finishable by someone else experiencing it.
And it’s harder than it sounds. Because we tend to think the deepest act we can chase is to be understood.
We spend our whole lives trying to be understood. When instead we should be striving to be received.
You see, understanding is about chasing accuracy.
Do they get me? Do they get what I meant? Does it make sense?
But being received is something else entirely…
It’s allowing your meaning to land in another person and change shape there.
And being okay with that shape.
Trusting that what they take from your work is valid, even if it isn’t what you intended.
Communication at its deepest level isn't just a transfer of information.
It’s a collision of two inner worlds.
Something new gets made in the middle.
And neither person owns it.
The moment we release our work…
it no longer belongs to our intention.
It belongs to interpretation.
So we don’t abandon the work because it’s done.
We abandon it because it’s ready to begin.
Ready to meet someone.
Ready to be misunderstood.
Ready to be loved for reasons we didn’t design.
Ready to become something we couldn’t have made alone.
Because our art reaches its final form
the moment it finds someone,
rewrites a piece of them…
and quietly lives there forever.
Stay creative,
