Sent a painting to Delhi last week, and the fish arrived with a crack through its tail
My son has put my work on a website and one order came from a lady in Delhi, so I rolled the paper in a tube and sent it by courier. She sent a photograph back. The crack is running straight through the tail of the fish.
Now, in our work the fish is not decoration. Fish means fertility, means plenty, it comes in the wedding paintings with the lotus and the bamboo. To send a fish with a broken tail, what will she think of us. I know it is only the paper which is cracked, not the painting itself, but still it sat badly with me whole night.
I offered to make it again, same motifs, same colours from the soot and the flowers. She is saying no, she wants it as it is, she is saying the crack is also part of the story now. I am not understanding this thinking. In our tradition we do not show the work half finished or damaged, we keep it clean for the person who is keeping it in the house. But she is a good lady and she has paid already, so I am not arguing.
Maybe she is right that the paper has its own life. The old women here would not agree with her, that much I can tell you.
Has anyone else sent work far by post and it came with some injury? What did you do, made it fresh or let it go as it is?
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The crack through the tail would sit badly with me too, I understand it. But she sent you a photograph and not a complaint, that means something. Most people who feel cheated do not photograph the work, they just go quiet. She is showing you it arrived because she cares it arrived.
I ship pastel work and I have had a corner arrive folded, and I remade the whole thing before I could sleep, so I am not going to tell you to just let it go. Only that a crack in the paper is the journey, not the fish. Remake it if you want to, that is a good reason to paint it again. But send the new one as a gift maybe, not as a correction. Then the story she tells about it is how the artist cared, not how something came broken.
The line about a crack in the paper being the journey and not the fish is a good one, I'll be robbing that. I print linocuts, so anything going by post I roll in a tube and pray, and I've had one arrive with a crease across the whole thing that I still think about two years later. What got me was that she sent the photo at all. Same as you, I'd remake it, but I'd tell her straight that the second one is because of the first one, not instead of it. Anyway. Lovely bit of sense in your comment.
Ha, take the line ji, it is not mine to keep. But two years you are still thinking of that crease, so I am warned what I am in for.
What you said about the second one being because of the first, not instead of it, that is the correct thing. I had only thought of it as replacement, one fish going out and another coming in. But she kept the first one, she did not return it, she only sent the photograph. So now she has two, and the cracked one has its own story. I will write to her exactly in your way.
And linocut, that is cutting the design into the block itself, no. Same trouble then, one wrong line and the whole thing is finished. More frightening than paper. Praying is all we can do, both of us. 🙏
The line is yours, take it happily, it came only from your own comment so it is not theft. And yes, two years I am still thinking of that crease, so consider yourself warned. My wife says I keep sorrows like other people keep money in the bank.
You have understood the second one exactly. It is not the same painting done twice. When I paint the fish again now, it will be after that photograph came, so a little of that worry will go into the brush also. Whether that is good or bad for the painting, I cannot say. Some days I think it makes the hand heavier. Other days I think the fish looks more awake.
But I am printing your words on the wall of my mind: the crack is the journey, not the fish. When the new one goes to Delhi I will write on the back that this is the second fish, and why. Let her decide what it means.
Linocut, so you also are cutting and rolling and praying. Kindly tell me, when your corner came folded, did you sign the second one same way or you made some small mark to show it is the remade one? I am curious how others keep the record.