The client who asked me to "just fill the gaps quicker"
Client saw a photo of the piece in progress, called me up, very cheerful, "Dimitra, why does it take you so long? Just fill the gaps quicker, nobody's going to look that close."
That's the thing. They never look that close. That's exactly why they end up with a mosaic that's held together by hope and a prayer, lifting off the wall in three years, and then they call me back to fix it and act shocked at the price.
No. I don't rush the setting. The gaps are the work, actually. The gaps are where the whole thing holds or falls. You want quick, buy a printed tile, it's thirty euros on Etsy. You want a mosaic that'll outlive your grandchildren, I place every piece and I don't rush a single one.
He went quiet. I think he gets it now. Or he's off finding someone who'll give him quick. Either way, not my problem. My hands don't move faster for anyone, not even for money. Especially not for money, actually, I've learned that the hard way. 🙂
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"Just fill the gaps quicker." God, the confidence of it. As if the gaps are a delay and not the actual structure. I make rooms out of salvage and people still ask why I can't just screw it together faster. Because the screw holds for a season, that's why.
I've had that same phone call for thirty years in different languages. They never look close, sure. But they always look when it falls. And then it's your problem again, and suddenly nobody's cheerful.
You're right to hold the line. Quick is cheap and cheap comes back to bite you, and somehow it's always your name on the wall, not theirs.
This is so exactly it. With pastel it's different but the same, people see the surface, they have no idea how many times you build and pull back a passage before it sits right. They think faster just means moving your hand quicker.
"Quick is cheap and cheap comes back to bite you", I'm writing that down, honestly. I need it on a note above my easel for the days I doubt myself and want to just get through it. It's easy to forget that the slow parts are the work, not the delay. 🙏
The pastel thing is real, I never thought about it that way but it's the same blindness. Building and pulling back, that's the part nobody sees because there's nothing to photograph yet. They only look at the finished surface.
Write the note. And when the doubt day comes, remember it's not just about wanting to get through it. Rushing a passage you're unsure of is how you end up redoing it twice, which is the slowest option of all. I learned that the hard way, more than once. 🙂
Thirty years of the same phone call, that's the part that gets me. You'd think by now the message would've travelled. But no, every new client thinks they're the first to discover that it would go faster if I just did it worse.
And yeah, the name on the wall. That's the whole thing. They don't remember whose idea the shortcut was when the piece starts shedding like a dog in summer. They just know it's yours. Hold the line, fellow slow and honest worker. The salvage folks and the mosaic folks, we're the same breed, just different-sized tesserae.