New thoughts on art commissions
In September of last year, I stopped taking any art commissions (after some custom charity art was done and ultimately rejected by a local who couldn't pay but also expected me to be a mind reader--*summary below). It was a very, very painful episode for me, not just about the time I lost working on it but was still expected to give in order to "fix" it, but the feedback I was given where I did not do anything right. Even knowing that the way things turned had not been my fault (aside from my stupidity of promising the art in the first place), it was invoking a deep, personal and longstanding problem I know I have--I'm attached to pleasing people.
I want people to like what they're getting. Because it's shitty in any situation where you don't, and you're paying for it! The best art commissions are collaborations where all involved are happy with the results. Not so good ones are where one party comes out not-so-thrilled--and I'm always trying to make sure that if/when that happens, it's me.
So, I don't love everything I've produced. It's no one's fault. In art-making as in anything else, there are opportunity costs that come from producing a picture a certain way as opposed to another: maybe an illustrated scene could have been better shown in a different composition, another point-of-view. Maybe another scene should have been picked. Maybe different colours, different lighting, a different mood, a different medium, or heck, a different artist altogether. But even that different artist runs through their own set of considerations where some choices made mean some other options were given up.
If you're not the artist, you may not be aware of quite all the choices available. Some people (and it's OK) go into commissioning art with the result they want fixed in their heads already--every detail, every colour, every shade, the faces (photos provided), the angles at which all objects are seen, the textures of the clothing and hair, the placement of everything inside the picture space. The artist then doesn't need to provide input--everything's been decided. For the art buyer, it's fantastic when they've got the absolute certainty that the painting they're getting out of those choices they've made is the best one for their purposes.
But sometimes the artist disagrees.
It can't be helped. The artist is the person who's been used to making their own choices what a good picture looks like. They've chosen their medium; their style's been developed out of an infinite variety of ways of painting, (and most of) their past works are the record of (1) their visionary skill, (2) their technical skills and (3) their personal aesthetics. The non-artist circumvents (1) and (3) the more stubbornly and comprehensively they control what the picture must be. Often even (2) is stifled when the composition and details (including all the colours!) desired go against what the artist knows works.
I've done pictures like that. (I am not working on anything like that right now, thank goodness.) Generally they're not as enjoyable as working on pictures where I'm given more free rein, but I'm grateful for the work. When the results are as the buyer wanted but inferior to other possibilities it could have been, and that I would have been happier to attach my name to, I just don't announce the new painting or help promote the book it's attached to, etc. There's no pride or feeling of ownership. In bad cases, I don't even want the artist credit for the work!
It's extreme (but not all that rare) cases that I'm describing here, and I don't know if I get them because I'm a small fry or if the best artists get these commissions as well. Maybe the best artists don't have to take commissions, or at least, this kind of commissions, or they do whatever they want anyway and just blow away the art buyer with their mad skillz so much that they forget what they wanted.
It could also be breaking self-marketing rules to ask such questions publicly, but I'm just curious.
Also, if you're an art buyer or potential art buyer reading this, just ask yourself if you trust the artist you're hiring. Do you like the art that they've done? If you do, let them work and trust (at least some of) their decision-making skills. If you don't, find another artist. If you want one artist to paint like another artist, don't. Just don't.
* Summary: The original blog entry is protected. Singapore being the small country that it is, there are some circles I move in that could guess the identity of the art-buyer (a term I use loosely) in question, and for all I know, I may be the only artist who had a bad experience. Anyways, to sum up: The artwork was gratis, done at a time I was hugely busy--the Field Guide to Surreal Botany had just been printed--and also, suddenly, the no-deadline work had a deadline, and what were loose guidelines for a work that was supposedly up to the artist's vision turned out not to be at all. The guy was asking for a complete rework for a large, digitally-painted art piece that was free, from a person who could not and should not have spared the time, and the changes wanted were for subjective, personal tastes and expectations he had not shared with the artist earlier. Now you know!
I want people to like what they're getting. Because it's shitty in any situation where you don't, and you're paying for it! The best art commissions are collaborations where all involved are happy with the results. Not so good ones are where one party comes out not-so-thrilled--and I'm always trying to make sure that if/when that happens, it's me.
So, I don't love everything I've produced. It's no one's fault. In art-making as in anything else, there are opportunity costs that come from producing a picture a certain way as opposed to another: maybe an illustrated scene could have been better shown in a different composition, another point-of-view. Maybe another scene should have been picked. Maybe different colours, different lighting, a different mood, a different medium, or heck, a different artist altogether. But even that different artist runs through their own set of considerations where some choices made mean some other options were given up.
If you're not the artist, you may not be aware of quite all the choices available. Some people (and it's OK) go into commissioning art with the result they want fixed in their heads already--every detail, every colour, every shade, the faces (photos provided), the angles at which all objects are seen, the textures of the clothing and hair, the placement of everything inside the picture space. The artist then doesn't need to provide input--everything's been decided. For the art buyer, it's fantastic when they've got the absolute certainty that the painting they're getting out of those choices they've made is the best one for their purposes.
But sometimes the artist disagrees.
It can't be helped. The artist is the person who's been used to making their own choices what a good picture looks like. They've chosen their medium; their style's been developed out of an infinite variety of ways of painting, (and most of) their past works are the record of (1) their visionary skill, (2) their technical skills and (3) their personal aesthetics. The non-artist circumvents (1) and (3) the more stubbornly and comprehensively they control what the picture must be. Often even (2) is stifled when the composition and details (including all the colours!) desired go against what the artist knows works.
I've done pictures like that. (I am not working on anything like that right now, thank goodness.) Generally they're not as enjoyable as working on pictures where I'm given more free rein, but I'm grateful for the work. When the results are as the buyer wanted but inferior to other possibilities it could have been, and that I would have been happier to attach my name to, I just don't announce the new painting or help promote the book it's attached to, etc. There's no pride or feeling of ownership. In bad cases, I don't even want the artist credit for the work!
It's extreme (but not all that rare) cases that I'm describing here, and I don't know if I get them because I'm a small fry or if the best artists get these commissions as well. Maybe the best artists don't have to take commissions, or at least, this kind of commissions, or they do whatever they want anyway and just blow away the art buyer with their mad skillz so much that they forget what they wanted.
It could also be breaking self-marketing rules to ask such questions publicly, but I'm just curious.
Also, if you're an art buyer or potential art buyer reading this, just ask yourself if you trust the artist you're hiring. Do you like the art that they've done? If you do, let them work and trust (at least some of) their decision-making skills. If you don't, find another artist. If you want one artist to paint like another artist, don't. Just don't.
* Summary: The original blog entry is protected. Singapore being the small country that it is, there are some circles I move in that could guess the identity of the art-buyer (a term I use loosely) in question, and for all I know, I may be the only artist who had a bad experience. Anyways, to sum up: The artwork was gratis, done at a time I was hugely busy--the Field Guide to Surreal Botany had just been printed--and also, suddenly, the no-deadline work had a deadline, and what were loose guidelines for a work that was supposedly up to the artist's vision turned out not to be at all. The guy was asking for a complete rework for a large, digitally-painted art piece that was free, from a person who could not and should not have spared the time, and the changes wanted were for subjective, personal tastes and expectations he had not shared with the artist earlier. Now you know!