Commissions, Requests, and Collaborations Part 1: Commissions

Ola, mon amis (yes I know those aren't the same languages, just roll with it). It is good to be getting back to my "regularly scheduled programming". Life and art are irrevocably linked but sometimes life makes doing art nearly impossible. Jury duty, the birth of a new niece, and helping a friend move, along with my usual responsibilities kept me too busy to blog or make new things. But "life" is slowing down and I've been thinking about the difference between commissions, requests, and collaborations. So lets jump right into it.

Commissions... I have to admit that my current business cards and website have the statement: "Commissions accepted." I have accepted commissions, and had varying degrees of success (for me success is defined by both a satisfied patron and a satisfied artist). In almost all my accepted commissions the customer was satisfied but the artist - me - was left with a desperate need to be creative and true to my artistic voice. (Note: I will talk about good experiences when we get to requests and collaborations.)

My dissatisfaction was not because I was making something difficult or too challenging, but because I was producing something familiar over and over and over again. Apparently, I need variety to keep my creativity flowing. For example let me tell you about the last commission I accepted the very last. After the December craft fair flurry had died down, I received a call from a satisfied customer. She and her fiance loved their mugs; she wondered if I could make 25 of the wiggle-wire mugs in blue for them to give as appreciation gifts at their wedding. I had recently made 20 "Hobbit" goblets for my cousin's wedding (more on working with and for her later) and so thought to myself, "It's good money; why not do it? It might be a bit boring but its $250, what's a little boredom? After all, its only 30 mugs." (I always make extra just encase a few don't work out).

So I accepted the commission and started throwing mugs. After 2 weeks of making only wiggle-wire mugs in my studio, I had to do something different -- something to exercise my creative muscles. So I took a week and worked for myself on my own art. The next week I put my nose back to the grind stone and had 30 mugs ready for firing. During the bisque firing, I mixed a large batch of my "Chun Like Blue" glaze. (I really do not enjoy mixing glazes, for me it is a necessary evil and an unwelcome chore.) When the mugs were done I glazed them and put them right back in my kiln to fire to cone 6.

After a day of firing and a day to quick cool everything, making the crystals in the glaze come out, it was time to unload the kiln. Expecting vitrified, shiny, ready to be shipped mugs it was horrified to find that something had gone wrong in the kiln. The liner glaze on the 30 mugs had not vitrified and so all of them were unusable and therefore unsaleable.

I blamed myself, thinking I must have mixed the glaze wrong because my other glazed pots in the same kiln seemed fine.

What could I do? I was making the favors for this customer's wedding. I contacted the bride-to-be and was informed that the wedding had been postponed due to catastrophic illness within her family. She assured me there was time to re-do her commission.

I went back to the studio and made 30 more wiggle wire mugs with very little joy. I mixed up a new batch of glaze (with a sarcastic:"oh joy"). I put the new mugs in the kiln over night to fire.

In the morning when I went to check the kiln it had not shut off in the wee hours of the night as I had expected. Surprised, and worried, I looked into the kiln. I could tell it was barely past bisque temperature after 12 hours! Something was wrong with my kiln! I manually shut it off, ruining yet another 30 mugs!

At this point I had 60 useless mugs, and another 30 to make. I felt depressed by that realization. Three months of hard, repetitive work and nothing to show for it except 60 pounds of wasted clay, a lot of ruined cobalt glaze, and a busted kiln.

To date the commission for 30 mugs hangs over my head (when I think about it or see the ruined mugs I still want to cry) and I continue to play phone tag with the kiln repair man. Soon I will have to contact my customer and tell her that I am unable to complete her commission -- just what any busy bride wants to hear, I am sure.

It is not something I want to say, either as I consider the results of my year-long attempt to make 30 wiggle wire mugs of blue. The shelf full of mugs I can't sell, a disappointed costumer, a wiggle wire tool I can't stand to look at, and a stock still depleted from my Christmas sales, left me frustrated and uninspired, which made me more depressed.

Thank God for the NCECA conference which gave me some inspiration and information that pulled me out of my creative funk. Especially the panel discussion by Kristen Kieffer, Sunshine Cobb and Meredith Host, entitled: "Making It: Artist/Entrepreneur" was particularly helpful in clarifying the cause of my creative condition. During their conversation they discussed whether as an Artist/Entrepreneur should you accept commissions. They recommended that an artist should not accept "commissions" where the client told the artist what they wanted and the artist made it to order. Instead they recommended considering what they called "requests". In such a case the client requests something like a dinner set or 30 mugs but leaves your hands free for artistic expression even if it is just in the way you glaze the work. Perhaps the client making the request specifies the glaze treatment, but gives the artist creative freedom in the areas of form, texture, and style. However they all felt even requests should be carefully considered so as to avoid the loss of creativity that makes your art, art.

Since NCECA I have reconsidered my position on commissions and have decided I will only take "requests", and before accepting or refusing a potential client's "request" I will ask myself these and more questions; Would you be willing to take this job if it was twice as large? If something goes wrong and you have to start all over again will you burn out? Will the time constraints kill your personal art time? Are you inspired by this request? If I have the wrong answer to any of these questions my answer to the "request" will have to be: "no."

In retrospect I wish I had considered these questions before agreeing to making 30 wiggle wire mugs of blue! Truth be told, not succeeding may cause my artistic reputation to suffer. And the job itself has hindered my artistic life, limiting my joy and inspiration through the repetitiveness of mass production. So I will learn from my mistakes and remove the "Commissions accepted" from my website and business cards, and just let it be known that I will consider client requests.

More on Request and Collaboration next time... tell then stay inspired.

#workmadeforothers