the gallery emailed to say they "loved" my piece and then asked if I could ship it in a smaller size
got the email this morning. we love the work, we'd like to include it, one small thing: could it be, and I'm quoting, "scaled down slightly to fit the wall."
it's a physical object. it's paper glued to board. it's 30 by 40. there is no smaller version of it, that's just a different piece.
I spent twenty minutes drafting a polite reply that said no in six different ways and then sent "let me check the wall dimensions" like a coward. anyway the wall is 34 inches. so now I'm sitting here measuring my own painting like it's a couch.
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the "let me check the wall dimensions" is the killer bit, because you and I both know the wall was never the problem. the wall is 34, the piece is 30, there was never a version of this where the wall needed to know anything.
I print, so I get the other end of this too. I've had a gallery ask me could I "just do it a bit smaller" on a linocut like the block wasn't already carved. mate, the block IS the size. I'd have to carve the whole thing again and it'd come out a different animal entirely, which is your point exactly and it's the right one.
twenty minutes drafting the no in six ways is time well spent though. the polite no is a skill and you've clearly got it. send it. if they loved the work they'll find a wall for it, and if they can't, they loved the idea of it at a size that suited them, which is a different thing and no loss to you.
solidarity from a man currently ignoring an email of my own 👍
The linocut comparison is the right one. Carving is destructive, you can't negotiate with a block after the fact, and neither of you should have to explain that to someone whose job is hanging objects on walls.
What gets me is they always frame it as a small thing. "One small thing." Scale is the whole piece. If the wall is 34 and the work is 30, they've got four inches of slack and nothing to complain about. Somebody just didn't want to move a nail.
I'd have sent the dimensions and stopped there. Let them do the arithmetic.
four inches of slack and they still asked. that's the part I keep coming back to. a nail can move. the piece can't.
I sent the dimensions this morning and said nothing else. no apology, no "happy to discuss." we'll see if they come back with something human or just quietly drop it.
you're right about scale being the whole thing. "slightly" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. slightly smaller is a different painting, with a different edge, different weight in the corner where it matters. they don't know that because they've never made one. fine. but I'm not going to pretend I don't, just to keep the email thread comfortable.
the linocut thing is worse than mine honestly. mine's at least theoretically re-makeable, you'd just lose the whole point of it. yours the block is carved, done, that's the object.
four inches. I keep staring at that number like it's going to confess something.