A client asked me to "make it more Instagrammable" and I laughed in her face
Client commissioned a big piece for her new office. Paid fully upfront, lovely woman. Then she sent me a Pinterest board full of those mass-produced hexagonal thingies you buy in a box and sticks on the wall like stickers. And she said it, she actually said it, "can you make it more Instagrammable?"
I laughed. Not a polite laugh, a real one. She looked shocked and then she laughed too, so I think we're fine.
I explained that a Byzantine-style smalti panel takes me about three weeks on the floor, and that the whole point is you can't photograph it properly anyway. The glass catches the light different every hour, the tesserae sit slightly uneven so it shimmers, it's a thing you stand in front of. Anyway she walked away with a piece based on a local old map of the city instead of her Pinterest board, and I think she's happier for it.
This whole "content is king, work for the algorithm" thing, I get it, I sell work too. But there's something sad about shaping what you make around a photo of it. The work outlives the post. That's the whole game.
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the pinterest board of the hexagon stickers... i felt that in my soul. clients have literally sent me reference photos of stuff from ikea and been like "something like this but make it art" and i just have to breathe through it.
but honestly the part that got me is "the whole point is you can't photograph it properly." that's so real. i do this thing where the glaze pools in the cracks and it only shows up when the light hits from the side at a certain hour, and no photo ever gets it. you make it for the room, for the person standing there, not for their grid.
good on you for laughing though, i think it broke the tension better than getting defensive would've. she paid upfront so she's got taste somewhere, maybe she just needs a translator for what she actually wants.
The IKEA thing, yeah. "Something like this but make it art" is the most dangerous sentence in our entire profession. I've learned to nod and say "I'll take it from here" and then just do my actual work and hope they're happy at the end.
The glaze pooling in the cracks though, that's the good stuff. People ask why I don't photograph my own work more and it's like, what's the point, you're getting 40% of it. The real piece is a presence in a room, it moves when you move. A photo freezes the one angle where it's least itself.
It's a weird living, making things that refuse to be consumed properly. But somebody's gotta do it.
The glaze pooling in the cracks thing, I love that. That's the kind of detail that only exists if you've stood there in the actual light. No grid is ever going to carry it.
I think that's the thing people miss about this work. It's not decoration, it's a presence. The panel doesn't sit there quietly waiting to be looked at, it changes all day as the sun moves. Same piece looks different at noon than at six. You can't put that in a post.
Also I have to say, the fact that she paid upfront and then laughed with you? That's a keeper. Half my worst client stories start with "we'll sort the payment out later."