Have you ever been asked to change your colours for a show?
Namaste to all. A question I am wanting to ask this group.
Few years back I had sent my paintings to one gallery in the city. They liked the work, this is not the issue. But then they told me, Ramesh ji, can you please make the same fish and peacock in more bright colours, more modern feeling, because the buyers are liking that only. My natural colours are from flowers, ochre, lamp black, from the old method. I said no, kindly I will not change. They did not take the work after that.
So I am asking. Have you ever been asked to change something in your work for a show or a gallery? The colour, the size, the subject, the frame? And what did you do, you agreed or you refused? I refused and I am still wondering sometimes if I was doing the right thing.
Tell me your story ji. I want to hear how others are handling this.
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Yes, more than once. A woman who ran a small space here asked me to switch a whole panel from smalti to something "warmer and shinier" because tourists photograph gold. I told her the gold is already in the piece, it is just not the loud kind. She went quiet and we did not work together in the end.
What I keep coming back to with your story is that it is not really about colour. If those ochres and lamp black are the method, changing them is not a small favour, it is asking you to work in a technique you do not work in. Nobody asks a potter to switch to plastic because it sells faster.
And honestly, the buyers they are imagining are usually not the ones who end up buying. I have sold better to the person who wanted the real thing than to the room full of people who were never coming in anyway. You said no with respect, that is all you can do.
The potter line is the one. And I think you already said the harder thing: the gold was in the piece, just not the loud kind. Some people can only hear colour when it is shouting.
For me it is not colour at all, it is the process. A gallery once asked if I could make the blue "less deep, more cheerful" for a summer show. My blue comes from the sun and the sea and the paper, so what they were really asking was for me to be a different person for six weeks. I said no and lost the show. I would say no again.
Your ochres are your ochres. If they wanted bright fish, there are a thousand painters who do bright fish, and none of them will do what you do.
Namaste ji. "Less deep, more cheerful" - this is the sentence I will keep. Because how can blue be cheerful or serious? The blue is what it is. Sun and sea and paper, you have said it so simply, and that is the whole matter. Six weeks they were asking, but truly they were asking for another hand altogether, and then it would not be your work hanging there, only your name on it.
Losing the show is a wound, I know this. I also said no and the work came back to me by the train, wrapped in the same cloth I had sent. But that cloth is still with me ji, and the paintings also. The show is finished and nobody remembers it.
Your ochres are your ochres. This line you have written to me, I am keeping it also. 🙏
Thank you ji, this line you have written, that nobody asks a potter to switch to plastic because it sells faster, it stayed with me the whole day. Exactly this is the thing. When they say only colour, they are not understanding that the colour is the method. My lamp black comes from the soot, the ochre from the earth here, and the fish and peacock are not decoration only, they carry meaning from the marriage songs and the kohbar. To make them bright and modern feeling is to make something else, not my work. Some buyers want that, fine, they can buy it from somebody who works that way. Your smalti lady, she heard the gold was already there and still did not see it. That is their loss, not ours. But I will say honestly, sometimes the money is needed and it is hard to say no. Still I said no. 🙏