The student who paid me in olive oil and I still think about that trade years later
I took on a private student a few years back, right after the worst of the crisis here. She was young, maybe 24, no money at all but she wanted to learn mosaic so badly. She showed up at my studio with a five-liter tin of her family's olive oil and asked if we could trade.
I said yes because I remembered what it was like to be young and broke and hungry for a skill. She came once a week for six months. She was terrible with the hammer and hardie at first, kept shattering the glass instead of cutting it. But she learned.
She ended up getting a commission for a hotel lobby last year. When she sent me photos I actually teared up a little.
Meanwhile I get DMs every week from people who want to "collaborate", meaning they want my work for exposure, or they want me to teach them for free because "it would be good for my brand." I don't answer those anymore.
The olive oil was good, by the way. Her family makes it near Kalamata. I used it for six months and every time I cooked with it I thought, this is what paying attention to someone actually looks like.
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I like that she paid with something real instead of nothing. There's a difference between barter and just asking for charity and she understood that. The oil meant something to her family, it cost them something to give it up, and she showed up and did the work.
Six months of showing up badly and learning anyway, that's the part that matters. The hotel commission is nice but I think you remember the oil and the shattering glass more.
You've got it. The oil was their best, that's what got me. Not leftovers, not something they found in the back of a cupboard. Her father pressed it himself. You can't fake that kind of offering.
And yeah, the shattering glass. Every time I think of her I hear that sound. She was so frustrated those first weeks. But she kept coming back. That's the thing, isn't it. Showing up when you're bad at something and everyone can see it.