I must confess that I have never liked doing "commissions" or "custom work" for clients.
I think that what weighs me down and kills my creativity is that I am suddenly working to fulfill expectations. With work that's already made, it either lives up to someone's expectations... or it doesn't. The creative phase already happened before the expectations arrived on the scene.
I'm perfectly OK with someone not liking a piece of artwork. After all, tastes vary widely.
In the case of commissions, I suddenly have to try to anticipate what's going on inside someone else's head... and there's always the risk that I put many hours of creative effort into a piece of work, "according to instructions," only to be told "no, that wasn't REALLY what I had in mind. Can you try doing this, that, and the other differently?"
In the end, the result ends at "Yeah, OK... that will do," as opposed to someone seeing a piece of work that is already finished and exclaiming "OMG! I Love it! Have to have it!"
I suppose I partly burned out on the idea of custom work as a kind of "hangover" from the days I spent as a technical writer, which was also all about making other people happy with my creative efforts, according to their instructions.
Just to be clear, I'm not dismissing the value of commissions and custom work, and I have known a number of artists who love it and enjoy the challenge of figuring out what's going on inside the client's head. I'm just not one of them.
The only time I make exceptions tends to be for (usually corporate) clients who want something like "six pieces, very similar to that, as presentation gifts," or something like that. Typically, the guidelines for the actual creative part are very loose... the primary parameters are size and cost. That I can work with, because the expectations are relatively easy to meet. Alas, those kinds of commissions are relatively rare.
Am I being overly picky and persnickety?
Maybe I am. On the other hand, I have the relative "luxury" of not being fully dependent on my art as a way to make a living, so I can live with sometimes turning work away if it seems like it will be too much of a pain in the butt. And I am very grateful for that!
Still, these last few years have been very "lean," and I expect I am going to have to become more flexible with my "creative values" if art is to provide any kind of income stream.
Maybe this is a dilemma many artists face... the issue of selling vs. selling OUT.
Thanks for stopping by! Do leave me a comment if you feel so inspired.
20220326
H0040/0277
All images are our own, unless otherwise attributed