Your first commission?

[Patricia Joyce]

I have done a couple commissions but am still waiting for one from a pure stranger who has seen my work. Well, I guess you could say I received my first call from a potential client yesterday. I just got off the phone with her and thought my friends here would appreciate this story...

Of course, I was very nervous. So I took out my price list and rehearsed in my mind what my process is for meeting with the client and subject to discuss wardrobe, setting up the photo shoot, pricing, deposit requirement, time frame, the whole schtick!!

After saying a silent prayer I dialed the number. She is an elderly woman who, it turns out, had purchased a large print which had cherubs in it. "I just love those baby angels, you know?..."

"However, these adorable angles are male, of course, and being angels are unclothed. I was wondering if you could paint ribbons over their private parts?". . .

I haven't stopped laughing since graciously ending the phone call !!!

[Garth Herrick]

My first paid commission was a group portrait of the family of one of my mother's piano students in 1982. I deliberatly aimed for primary colors in an impressionistic interpretation. I think I was paid about $400.00.

A year went by as I was working on "Susan Weiss and her Daughters", so the youngest began as a newborn and gradually became a toddler in the painting. Now all the girls are adults and there are grandchildren too.

It' kind of scary how the years have gone by and how many ways my painting style has evolved. This family kept me busy with other portrait projects over the years. One of the most interesting were three standing life-sized cut-out oil on birch plywood portraits of the three teen-aged girls in 1994. You never feel alone in an empty room with these standing portraits!