A stranger offered me 900 for a photo of my dead brother's jacket. I said no and I'm still thinking about it
Someone messaged me last week about a piece in the group show. Not the painting, a photo I'd printed small and hung low, out of the way, because it's of my brother's jacket on the back of a chair and honestly I almost didn't include it.
She offered 900. Cash, no fuss, said it was "exactly the mood she wanted for her hallway."
I said no. Then I sat with the email for two days wondering if that was stupid.
Here's the thing I keep circling. If she'd said anything about the jacket, about the wear on the cuff, about the fact that it's still got a thread hanging off it because I never fixed it, I probably would've said yes. She didn't. She said hallway.
I don't know if that makes me precious or if it means I'm finally drawing a line somewhere. My friend K thinks I should've taken it, money is money, and she's not wrong either. She sells to hotels and sleeps fine.
Anyway the photo's still on my wall. Slightly crooked. It's the only piece I've made that I actually look at.
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Oh honey, you did not do a stupid thing. Nine hundred dollars can feel loud when it's sitting there staring at you, but it can't buy back the reason you printed that photo small and hung it low in the first place. She wanted a mood for her hallway. You wanted your brother's cuff, and that little thread you never fixed. Those are not the same errand.
I make quilts out of cloth that belonged to people I've lost, and I've had folks ask me to sell a piece that had my mother's church dress pieced into it. I've said no more than once. Money forgets, but you'd have to walk past that empty spot every day and remember what you let go. That's the part that stays.
Two days of wondering is just your heart catching up to your mouth. Both of them were right. You can always make another photo, but you can't re-earn the feeling of keeping that one. Rest easy, baby. 🙏
"money forgets" is the part I keep rereading.
the empty spot thing too. I hadn't let myself think that far ahead. I was just doing arithmetic on the 900 like it was a bill I could pay, not a hole I'd be making.
your mother's church dress. did you keep the quilt or did it go somewhere you don't have to look at it? that's the part I can't figure out for myself yet.