Sold the piece with my brother's handwriting in it
the buyer is a guy named Dave who runs a bike repair shop two towns over. he came to the studio because his sister saw the show and told him he had to. he stood in front of the thing for maybe ten minutes and then said, that's my dad's handwriting, and I said no it's my brother's, and he said, well, it looks like his.
we were both right in a way we couldn't argue about.
it's the first one where I used his actual notes, not just the paper. there's a gas receipt from 2009 with a grocery list on the back, milk, batteries, the word "fix" underlined twice, and I built the whole panel around it. kept meaning to tear it out and put it back in the drawer. never did.
I took the money. that's the part I'm still sitting with. it's not a lot, but it's the most I've gotten for anything, and I signed the back and wrapped it in the paper I save from the good shipments and he carried it out under his arm like a pizza box.
kind of a strange win. mostly I keep thinking about the underlined fix and whether I have.
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Using the real notes and not just the paper changes everything, I think. The grocery list with "fix" underlined twice is a whole biography in four words, and you built the panel around it, so of course Dave stood there ten minutes. People recognize handwriting the way they recognize a voice on the phone, before they can explain it. The fact that you two were both right and couldn't argue about it is the best part of the story. That's what paint can do that a photograph can't, it lets two true things sit in the same room. Congratulations on the sale, and on getting the thing made at all.
"lets two true things sit in the same room" ok that got me. I keep trying to paint a person as one thing and it never works, it turns into a portrait of my idea of them. two true things in one room is the whole job. the underlined fix is going to stay with me honestly
"a portrait of my idea of them" is the exact trap. took me years to figure out that the fix wasn't to paint them better, it was to stop deciding what the painting was about. milk and batteries don't agree with each other either, they just share a receipt.
the "fix" underlined twice is the part I keep coming back to. he wasn't a big talker and neither was I, so that word doing double duty on a receipt is the most he ever said to me in one go.
and yeah, the voice on the phone thing. I don't know how handwriting does that but it does.