As I was cleaning up in my art studio ( another new year's resolution) I came across piles of decades-old watercolor paintings.  I flipped through them nonchalantly initially,  but then began to experience mixed feelings...which were hard to pinpoint  On the one hand, I was bemused if not embarrassed at the naivety of some of my early paintings   - yet how pleased I had been with them at the time of painting. But then- how could I have been so lacking in discernment to have been pleased with them?

I was intrigued as I glanced through the pile. How did I not see the mistakes and weaknesses ?  But this is the nature of PERCEPTION - we see what we want to see.  It is also the "paradox of learning" as author Kathryn Schulz  calls it in her best seller "BEING WRONG"  - you learn mostly through your mistakes. At the time of painting  I hardly saw them as mistakes. I struggled mightily to achieve these modest artistic effects even as I marveled at how "real" painters seemed to execute their works  so effortlessly  (or so it seemed). 

Then I realized that all artists are compelled to crawl up this slow learning curve. Many years ago in Boston I saw an exhibition on the trajectory of Matisse's  art works from his early twenties to the end of his life. I was at once stunned and encouraged at how naive  and virtually inept his early landscapes were and how far he advanced to his brilliant final abstracts. What a trajectory! How did his perceptive acuity and artistic skill transform so drastically over the years? The same holds true for Picasso whose early works are scarcely recognizable as "Picassos." 

In the art magazine PALETTE  I came across a short article by artist Ruth Ellen Hoag ("Not too bad...but not Too Good") discussing her feelings as she peruses (like me) a stack of old paintings.  She wrestles what to do with them but in the end opts to "tear the damn things up...and have a lot more closet space." 

My approach has been different. I sorted the old paintings into a separate neat pile and decided to keep them - at least for now. My reason? First, I find it humbling to realize how "deluded" I was at the time of painting them to consider they had any merit. Second, I am a a little moved to realize the sense of achievement and wonder I felt when I did these naive paintings; and I want to honor the person and the happiness I experienced at the time. Why pretend you were always better than you were years ago? Third, I find it encouraging to see how much I've learned over the many hours I put into my art (was it 10 000 hrs at Malcolm Gladwell suggests - and others now contest?) and that I have actually progressed substantially. Those hours have not been for naught! Fourth, I am grateful to my excellent  and patient teachers who showed me the path forward technically and artistically, and offered honest  feedback. 

My advice. Keep your old paintings - at least some of them. It's humbling; it honors your old painter-self; and it's also eventually encouraging. AS Ralpoh Waldo Emerson said" "EVERY ARTIST WAS ONCE AN AMATEUR!" -  even Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne...and the the rest of us mortals even if we are by comparative still "amateurs" (who cares).