On Making Hard Decisions

So I’ve decided I no longer want to take commissions. At least, not at this time in my development.

Commissioned work is stressful and difficult. It’s hard to get something just right the way the buyer wants it.

Rather than liberating, it is confining. Rather than giving me the freedom to explore, I’m limited to someone else’s definitions and vision. Even when I'm given a lot of free reign, I am simply not ready to be like Maggi Hambling, who recently exclaimed (after a public installation was decried by the public): “I need complete freedom to respond to the spirit of my subject, and could not work if constrained by convention or preconceived demands.”

While I aspire to that, and I can do that with non-commissioned pieces fairly easily, I am not yet there when someone asks me to make something for them. People have ideas of what they like and don't like, and I am not yet ready to either get into conflict or deal with the necessary negotiations.

 So as much as I think commissioned work will help the business, right now it is not good for the artist or the art.