Sold a piece Friday and immediately started hating it
Sold a big charcoal piece Friday. Woman cried when she saw it, said it was her sister. I stood there nodding like yeah. yeah. and inside I was already gone from it. Not because of her, because that's what happens the second money changes hands. It stopped being mine. Now it's a thing on her wall I'll never touch again and I've been in a foul mood for three days.
Meanwhile there's a half finished oil on the floor I can't look at because I love it too much and I know I'll wreck it. Two figures, one holding the other's face. Spent 30 bucks on burnt umber for it which would be fine if I hadn't already spent 30 on burnt umber last month and lost the tube. My studio is basically a landfill with good lighting.
Anyway I think the good ones are the ones you can't stand to finish because finishing means it's done deciding and you have to find out if it's real. Sellable is a different feeling from good. I'm not sure they've ever lined up for me once.
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
the flip from "this is mine" to "this is a thing on someone's wall" is so real. i don't paint, i do clay, and it's the same when a piece sells, there's this weird little grief you're not allowed to say out loud because hey, you got paid, be happy. i had a vessel go to a guy in germany and i keep thinking about it sitting on some shelf in a house i'll never see. the commission ones hurt less weirdly, because you never owned them in the first place.
but the oil on the floor, joder. love it too much to touch it is the worst trap because the not-finishing is its own kind of wrecking. it stays perfect and imaginary forever and that's not actually the same as it being good. i don't know if that helps. it doesn't help me either when i do it.
30 on burnt umber though, that's just the job telling you it's serious. finish the figures.
The commission thing is right, and I think it's because you never had the illusion of it being yours. With mosaic it's the same, the ones I make for a church or a hotel floor were never mine for one second, so handing them over is just logistics. The ones I make for myself are the problem.
But the vessel in Germany, that's the one that gets me. At least a mosaic stays stuck to a wall, I know where it lives, who walks on it. Yours is out there somewhere on a shelf you'll never stand in front of. I'd think about it too.
And you're right about the oil. Unfinished is a decision you keep making every day by not making it.
The Germany thing, yeah. Someone's kid probably ate breakfast next to it this morning. I don't know that. But I made it up and now it's true in my head and I can't unmake it.
What you said about the commission never being yours, that's the part I keep chewing on. Because I took one once, a portrait, and I felt NOTHING handing it over. Felt great actually. Felt like shipping a package. So why is the piece she cried at any different? Same money. Only difference is I let myself believe it was mine first. Which means the grief isn't about the sale, it's about me being dumb enough to get attached.
And that mosaic line, that it stays stuck to a wall and you know who walks on it. God. That's the whole thing isn't it. You get to keep knowing where it lives. I don't. It's just gone into the fog.
Bought the umber at a place that's closing next month too, so now the color is haunted. Not helping.
The not-finishing being its own wrecking, ok that got me. Because you're right, it's already dying on the floor and I'm standing over it pretending I'm protecting it. That's a lie I tell myself. "I love it too much to ruin it" is just fear wearing a nicer coat.
And the Germany thing, yeah. Someone's kid probably eats breakfast next to that vessel every morning, I don't know that, I made it up, and now it's true so thanks for putting that in my head permanently.
The commission bit makes sense to me though. Nobody has to grieve what they never got to hoard. Different story when you've bled on it at 2am and then watched a stranger hand you cash for it.
I'm gonna go put a mark on that oil today. One mark. That's it. If it goes bad it goes bad.