Thorazine Thursday: a Flashback

I ripped the post title from Carla, but what else does one do when feeling unoriginal? Why, post images of art from the early days, that's what. I don't think I posted these before, but if I did, indulge me. I may have stated this before but out of about 75+ artworks, only 3 or 4 paintings and a handful of watercolors still exist from that period (1987-1992). Not that I can do anything over again, but I remember standing in my basement with my then boyfriend > husband > ex-husband, (a painter whose paintings were drastically different from mine), who while looking at my stack of paintings told me he would NOT help me move them to his > our loft, that I could NOT store them in his  > our loft, and that I wouldn't want to keep any of the work I did before grad school anyway because I would make MUCH better work in grad school and that's the work that would define me as an artist. I remember that moment clearly. I know where I was standing in the basement. I remember thinking, I really don't want to move all these paintings again by myself. I didn't really believe him, but it seemed like a huge amount of work to haul around for the rest of my life if indeed I wasn't going to ever show them to anyone. I only vaguely remember destroying them by myself, but not really. I only remember the walk from the basement to the trash can in the back alley. I forgot how long it took to purge them. I hope, of course, that as a painter my work has matured in 20 years, but looking at this work digitally is like having amnesia and slowly recognizing bits of who I was, and where I was, not only as an artist, but as a person. Obviously there was a bit of a conflict. I try hard not to destroy works now, since sometimes I've been dead wrong and since sometimes the ugly ones are the best, but most of all, I think destroying paintings is an akin to being an enfant terrible. My current position is to try and remove words like  "good" or bad" from the decision, though yesterday I ripped up a watercolor as I was sinking into a bad mood.

These are oil on canvas and oil on panel,  60" x 48", c. 1990.

I also found a color photo of the bench, so I reposted it.

As I mentioned in another post, I not having a stellar studio day. I may never be able to paint anything worthwhile again. For as long as I live. crap.