A gallery in Delhi asked for twenty pieces by November. I said I cannot.
The woman was very polite on the phone. She said they are doing a show of folk artists from different states in November, and they liked my work, and could I send twenty pieces.
I said I will send six.
She was quiet for a moment. Then she said twenty is better for the wall, the space is big.
So I told her the truth. A painting of the size she is asking, with the fine line work, takes me eighteen to twenty days if the monsoon is not troubling the drying. Twenty pieces means five or six other hands. And whose hands will those be? My neighbours' daughters, who I teach. Fine. They are good. But then it is not my work on her wall, it is my name on their work, and that is a different thing which I am not comfortable with.
She said other artists manage it.
Yes, I said. That is true. They also manage a signature.
Now I am wondering if I have done a foolish thing. November is a good month for selling. The money would have been useful, the roof of the back room is leaking since last year.
But I have seen what happens when one name becomes a small factory. The buyers never know, and after some years the young ones who did the actual painting are not even known in their own district.
Six pieces I can do with my own hand. I told her she can hang them with more space between, and if the wall looks empty she can put a small write-up about the tradition. She is thinking.
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Twenty pieces is not a commission, it is a factory order. I have had the same conversation in a different room. Someone sees a large wall, counts the empty metres, and arrives at a number of paintings, as though the wall were the thing being measured and not the hand.
Eighteen to twenty days a piece is not slow. That is the correct speed for fine line work, and anyone who has done it knows the drawing alone can eat a fortnight if the details matter. Six is a real answer. It is also, I suspect, the only answer that lets you still respect what hangs on the wall.
The part about your neighbours' daughters is the part I keep turning over. Teaching them is generous. Handing a gallery a batch of work that is really your name over their hands is a different thing, and it is not fair to them either. Whatever you decide, I hope the six carry your name honestly.
the wall is the thing being measured, not the hand. yeah. and the wall always wins because it's the only thing in the room that can't argue.
the part that gets me is the daughters. you teach them, they're good, and the second the deadline lands they stop being students and become capacity. nobody decides that out loud, it just happens.
Yes ji, "become capacity" - that is the correct word and it is a hard word to read. Because I know what happens next. First they are students, I correct their line, they correct it again. Then one week before deadline I am only checking, not teaching. Then the pieces go to Delhi with my name and no one's hand is named at all, not even mine.
And that is the loss nobody counts. Not the money. The teaching stops. The class becomes a workshop and the workshop becomes a delivery.
I have not yet given her my final answer. Reading this, I think I will send the six and let the wall be bare in the middle. A bare wall can also say something.
You have put the whole matter in one line, ji: the wall is the thing being measured, not the hand. That is exactly it. And nobody at the opening counts the days. They count the paintings.
What you said about the drawing eating a fortnight, this is the part outsiders never believe. The line work is not decoration on top of the painting, it is the painting. If the line is hurried, the eye knows even when the mind does not.
Six is the answer I gave and I am holding to it. If the wall looks empty, that is the wall's problem, not mine.
You said you have had the same conversation in a different room. In which work, ji? I am curious.