How I Know a Piece Is Finished
- Garrett A. Foster
- Nov 16
- 2 min read
People often ask how I know when a piece is finished. The truth is, I almost never know in the logical sense. There’s no checklist, no moment where I step back and think, “There — perfect.” Instead, something inside me simply quiets. The collage stops tugging at my sleeve. The conversation between image and heart goes still.
When I was working on The Seeker (Keeper) of Keys, I must have rearranged the elements twenty times. Every time I thought I was done, the image whispered, Not yet.
Then one night, I shifted a single key so it hovered just above the seeker’s hand, and the whole composition exhaled. The story no longer needed me to push it forward. That’s how I know. It’s not about control; it’s about listening for the exhale.
Sometimes, though, I miss it. Queer Silence haunted me long after I’d declared it finished. I kept wondering if I should have said more — or less. But maybe that uncertainty is part of the finish line. Some silences are meant to remain unfilled. They echo so others can step into them.
Contemplating Freedom was different. That piece became simpler with every pass. I kept stripping away layers until what remained felt almost too bare — two figures, still as marble, framed by light. It felt like a risk to leave it that open, but maybe freedom is always a little risky. I realized the same is true for relationships, for dreams, for chapters of our lives: there comes a moment when we’ve said all we can, when adding more only clutters the truth.
Art has taught me that endings are rarely neat. Sometimes they arrive disguised as restlessness or even boredom. Other times, they come wrapped in grief. But if I stay present long enough, I notice a subtle shift — the energy of something complete. It’s not that I’ve stopped caring; it’s that the work has stopped asking something of me.
Maybe that’s how we know when anything is finished — when it no longer demands our fixing, defending, or rescuing. When we can stand before it, grateful for what it gave and honest about what it cannot give anymore.
I’ve come to believe that “finished” isn’t about perfection at all. It’s about release. Whether it’s a collage, a relationship, or an old dream, the moment of completion feels like a quiet letting go — not out of fatigue or defeat, but out of trust that what’s next is already beginning to form.
So maybe the better question isn’t how we know when something is finished, but whether we’re willing to stop holding on once it is.
What in your life has already finished its work in you — and are you ready to let it go?
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