Ending with new beginnings....

Over break,  I have been up working early while the house is still quiet.  The top images are from the same small piece and the bottom row is a photo of a tree in my backyard and the large(ish) piece it inspired. The tree is full of character and sits next to a slightly larger evergreen and I really love the visual of the two of them out there together, throughout the year.  I feel as if I am moving in a slightly different direction and ending the year with new beginnings. I often think of a passage by Ernest Hemingway 'A Movaeable Feast' where he says that he never stops working until he knows what comes next.  That is how I try to work.  To create with energy and passion and move things forward and to stop and let go knowing what will be layered on when I get back into the studio.  Here is the quote from 'A Moveable Feast' which I listened to on CD while knitting a sweater a few years back:

"The best way is to always stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day, you will never be stuck.  Always stop while you are doing good and don't think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day.  That way your subconscious will work on it all the time.  But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired  before you start."   

                    -Ernest Hemingway

and while I was looking for that quote I came across this one which I love too...especially the line  about coming to your work and warming as you create and the line about being empty and never empty but filling...

"When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible.  There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write.  You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there.  You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again.  You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that.  When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling..."

              -Ernest Hemingway