Patrons, sponsors, clients, angels or commissioners, it doesn’t matter what you call them, they know just exactly what they want. But if you expect them to tell you, they become as easily understandable as the latest rant from Muammar Gaddaffi.
They want it this color and this size and they'd like it to look just like the way it did when they were ten years old, back on the porch swing in Gary, Indiana, and when out of that description you manage to produce something they tell you, “No!' And the they proceed to give you another set of improbable objectives and wait with less and less patience for you to do a simple thing like follow their crystal clear instructions.
Guess what, when you do it's still wrong. It may take as many as a dozen re-dos to get to the point that they like it and then you have to fine tune it so that they will break open their cracked leather wallets and pull out those uncirculated silver certificates, 'cause they haven't actually paid cash for anything since Willkie was in office. And then they whisper all over the area that you are hard to work with and can't even follow basic instructions.
Why do we do it? There's got to be an easier way for an artist to keep the lights on and the supplies fresh and a loaf of bread and a jug of wine and thou...together.
I can tell you the secret of why. Yes, it is a dark secret passed down from one generation to the next by wise men of the east living in caves and wearing untanned animal skins and eating wild honey and drinking fermented goat's milk, which is probably why you don't hear about it all that often. I mean if you won't even toss a handful of coins in a homeless person's cup because of the ambiance and vermin farm living in their hair, think about those untanned animals skins and the unlikelihood of finding the Old Spice Man and his deodorant products some where in a creepy old cave.
Oh, the secret? Saying yes.
When you say yes, whether it is to your spouse, a client, an organization or a pal, you have made a commitment and you have to try to deliver on it. No matter how goofy their request is.
No, you shouldn't hold up Wells Fargo. That kind of request will get you featured on Law and Order Da-Dum.
So if it isn't a stick up, bank, gas station or coffee shop why should you deliver?
Because you will get the magic of learning no matter how the project turns out. Artists like what they like. They tend to do it a lot and they expect the public to like it a lot and buy it even if they specialize in toe nail clipping art! That's right, give an artist a chance and they will stick to the craziest kind of thing you can imagine and being artists you can imagine some pretty crazy things, so word to the wise other artists can be just as obsessive as you.
By taking on someone else's idea you have to step outside your comfort zone and do a new thing even if you don't want to. Maybe it's colors, they come in many and maybe you only use the earth tones, or maybe it's three dimensional and you do only flat or maybe it's a special object and you have to navigate the tricky waters of creating a new and brilliant vision without copying someone's else's work?
It doesn’t matter, you'll learn.
Doing it over and you will have to do it over because the client will not settle on the first pass, it will make you scream, swear and weep and then go back to the drawing board and you will learn.
Doing it a third and a forth time will make you pound the walls and promise to kill the client and all of their families back through all of the generations and then when you finish biting your lip and chewing your nails, you'll learn.
Working for another person is the hardest thing you will ever do. It isn't for macho men, street punks or sissies, you have to be tough to take on a commission. But if you do, you get the satisfaction of struggling against impossible odds to please an unpleaseable client and the joy of seeing their downcast eyes when they realize you've done it and there just isn't anything else for them to complain about.
You get the experience of struggling against a deadline and having to make it happen on someone else's time line and with blood, sweat, toil and tears doing just that.
You get all of this from saying “Yes”.
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