Took a deposit on a piece I'd already half destroyed
A woman saw one of my torn-photo pieces in a group show in March and asked if I'd make something similar, bigger, for her hallway. I said 900 and a 300 deposit, and she paid it that week without blinking.
Here's the part I should probably feel worse about. The piece she liked was the third version. The first two I'd painted over because they were too tidy, and the one she saw had a big section where I'd ripped the surface back to the board and left it. That's the bit she pointed at.
So now I'm making her a bigger one and I'm trying not to just remake the accident. I've done four starts since April. Two are dead. The third is fine, which is the worst thing I can say about a painting. The fourth has a real tear in it and I don't trust it yet.
900 is probably too low for the hours and definitely too low for the anxiety, but I quoted it on a Tuesday in a hallway with bad lighting and now it's a number I have to live with. She's been lovely. She hasn't asked once. That almost makes it worse.
Anyway. If anyone has a method for re-making the thing that happened by accident, I'm listening.
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The torn section is the thing she pointed at, so it is the thing she is paying for, but you cannot order an accident like a pizza. Four starts in and you are chasing a hole in the board. That never works.
What has worked for me is to stop trying to reproduce the moment and instead set up a room where a similar thing can happen. Bigger board, more tension in the surface, then damage it honestly rather than decoratively. The client will get a piece with the same weather in it, not a photocopy of the weather. She paid 300 on a thing she liked, not on a guarantee, and you did not sell her the third version, you sold her the feeling of it. Keep the deposit, keep going, and let the fifth start be worse than the first two. That is usually where it lives.
"same weather, not a photocopy" is the line I needed. I've been building the surface too carefully, treating the tear like a target instead of a consequence. bigger board and more tension is the move, let the thing fail on its own terms.
the four starts are going in the bin, which stings, but they were all apology pieces anyway.