“How easy it is for a painter to lose a painting. He paints and paints, works on a canvas for months, and then, one day, he loses it. Loses the structure, loses the sense of it. You lose the painting.

I remembered asking my kids’ second-grade teacher: ‘Why are all your students geniuses?’ Look at the first grade – blotches of green and black. The third grade – camouflage. But your grade, the second grade… Matisses, every one. You’ve made my child a Matisse.

Let me study with you. Let me into the second grade. What is your secret?

‘I don’t have any secret. I just know when to take their drawings away from them.’”

- Flan Kittredge, Six Degrees of Separation

Thanks to John for reminding me of this great quote. It’s a real skill, isn’t it – knowing when to stop? With art. With work. With whatever it is you’re putting energy into – knowing when to start channeling that energy elsewhere, to let go, to let something be.

What is it time for you to stop doing? What’s the next thing that awaits you?