Why I DO NOT take Commissioned Work.

I so often appreciate people who not only take an interest in my work but also take the time to tell me that they like it, love it, or better yet spend their very hard earned money on purchasing my art that they then give an honored place in their home.
It's humbling, it really is.

Lately, however, I've been thinking about my business model and was about to set up a whole section of the website dedicated to how to hire for commissioned work....and then as I thought about it, I have decided NOT to go forward taking commissions.

Maybe it's bad policy, who knows - but the reality of the way I work is simple: I do better work when it's only me and my God-given inspiration moving forward on a work and what things I'm going to apply to that work to get it to speak in the context of how I want it to speak.

This is not so easy when I take commissions, in fact I find it down right impossible. People like very specific stuff for their walls and that's great, but it seems that once I am confined to doing a very specific thing I find that all my creativity seems to be lost on making sure the new painting looks like what the client wants. Some artists are very good at this and I'm really happy for that - I'm just not of that caliber and while I recognize that it would take some practice to get there, I'm just not that interested in how to be creative "inside the box."

So this is where it's at - I'm being paid not for my labor, but for my vision...that is what my clientele is purchasing. This is important because I know that I am giving the best of my talents simply by doing just what I know to do: create MY vision on canvas and nothing else.

So I whole-heartedly appreciate those who buy my work, I am forever in their debt and that's mostly because I understand what they are acquiring. They are not asking for anything in particular, they are being moved by the things running around in my head and that's really something to be thankful for.