What's the maddest thing a gallery ever asked you to change?

I'll start, because mine still gets me going.

Years back I brought a rake of lino prints into a place, and the woman running it goes through the lot of them, nods away, grand, grand, then stops at a hare and says can I do the same hare but "a bit more cheerful."

A bit more cheerful. It's a hare. It's sitting in a field in the rain in Connemara, it's not going to be doing a jig for her.

I said I'd think about it, which is Irish for no, and I didn't do the show. But I still wonder was I the eejit, because she might well have sold the cheerful one twice over.

So what's yours? The colour change, the "can you make it smaller for the hallway," the one where they wanted the frame to match the sofa. Or the opposite, the note that was actually dead right and stung for a week.

Tell me the maddest one so I feel less alone 👍

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Ramesh Jha·3h

Ha, "a bit more cheerful" for a hare in the rain. Madam was not seeing the painting at all, she was seeing a thing to hang in a hallway.

I have had such requests also, ji. Once a lady asked me can I make the fish in my Matsya painting "smiling more." Fish is not smiling, it is a fish. But I have also learned that these people sometimes know their buyers better than we know, so I do not always refuse straight away. Now I tell them I will make a second piece for them, the way they are wanting, and the original stays as it is. Sometimes they buy the second one, sometimes they come back for the original. Either way my hand is not spoiled.

You were not the eejit. If the cheerful hare would have sold twice, then let her find someone to paint the cheerful hare.

Sol Reyes·2h

The second piece thing is smarter than anything I've ever managed to do. My problem is I say yes, then I go home and stare at the wall because I've agreed to paint something I don't believe in, and then I paint it badly, and then nobody's happy. Cheerful hare, smiling fish, none of it means anything if the person making it is gritting their teeth.

But you're not wrong about the buyers either. I've lost a sale that still stings because a woman wanted a face I'd painted to be "less sad" and I just flat out said no and walked off feeling righteous for about an hour. She knew her hallway, I know my face. Both true. The second piece thing is the only way I've heard of doing both without lying to anybody.

Niall DohertyOP·1h

Ah that's the crux of it though, the gritting the teeth. I've done the same, said yes to a thing I didn't believe in, and the print comes out with a sort of dead look on it that no amount of clean cutting will fix. You can always tell. Anyone who's carved a rake of them can tell.

But the hallway woman knowing her buyers, that's the bit I keep chewing on. She's not wrong that a hallway has a job to do. I just think there's a fair distance between "hang it where the light's good" and "make the hare look delighted about the rain," and I've no interest in the second one.

The line I've landed on, and I'll not pretend I always hold it, is I'll bend the size or the framing or the paper till the cows come home, but the thing in the middle stays mine. Walk off righteous if you like, but maybe ring her back in a week and offer her a smaller one. Righteousness doesn't pay the oil bill.

Niall DohertyOP·2h

"Fish is not smiling, it is a fish" has me in bits. You're right though, and I hate that you're right, the hallway lady probably knew her buyers better than I knew mine. That's the bit that niggles at me still.

The second piece idea is the clean way out of it and I never thought of it. I'm the same as the lad below, I say yes on the spot because I'm too polite to say no to a face, then I get home and the blank lino sits there looking at me and I've no interest in it at all. Doing a second one for them keeps the original honest, and sure if they buy the smiling fish, everyone's happy.

Might try it the next time instead of my usual "I'll think about it," which as we all know means no and a bit of guilt with it.

Ramesh Jha·3h

Ji, the colourful change request is not new thing. Once a buyer at a craft fair picked up a painting of mine, Matsya with the fish, and said can I make the fish "more golden, more lucky looking" for her drawing room. Fish in our tradition is not decoration ji, it is blessing, fertility, good fortune in the marriage. She was not wrong to want luck in the house, but to make it shine for the sofa is another matter.

I did not change it either. And sometimes I think same like you, that maybe I was the foolish one, because money was not so plenty and she would have paid well. But then I think if the painting stops meaning what it means, then what are we selling, only cloth and colour. I feel you were not the eejit ji. The hare sitting in the rain is the true hare.

Niall DohertyOP·2h

Matsya with the fish, now that's a proper thing to be asked to mess with. And you're dead right, the fish isn't decoration, it's carrying something. You can't just gild a blessing and hand it over to match a sofa.

But here's the bit that gets me about your one and mine. She wasn't wrong to want luck in the house. Neither of them were wrong to want what they wanted. They just wanted it from the wrong end of the thing, if you follow me. The luck is in the fish being a fish. The hare being miserable in the rain is the whole point of the hare.

I've landed somewhere on it since, mind. I do the piece I believe in, and if they want the golden version I tell them I'll do them a separate small thing, a good luck print, priced honest, and hang the real one beside it. Half the time they buy both. The other half they walk, and I'm grand with that now.

Money being scarce is a real thing though and I won't pretend it isn't. But you didn't sell the fish, you sold a version of yourself that'd have to turn up to the next fair, and that's the expensive one.