Friday, December 24, 2010

art under the tree

When I was at the Arts Downtown and All Around festival a couple of weeks ago, I spoke to a guy (named Bud) who came by my booth. He and his family were checking out my work and he stopped in front of the "Zen" collage. He said, "This would be perfect...if only it said 'Zhen' instead." I was confused, so he explained to me that a good friend of his has a dog named Zhen: "This would be a perfect Christmas gift for her...if only you could change it." They all left the booth after looking around for a while, but a few minutes later, he came back. "Do you ever do custom pieces?" he asked. I said, "Well, I haven't yet, but I don't see why I couldn't." He told me a little bit about his friend; I told him that it wouldn't be the same piece at all but that I could do my best to find images and materials that would give it the same feel. I took his information and agreed to get in touch with him before too long. Not only was this to be a Christmas gift, but it was getting sent to Colorado, so a trip to the post office and shipping time would need to be factored in (not to mention actually making the piece) so it could make it on time.

A few days later, I was talking to my good friend Jen about this. "I'm a little nervous," I said, "I've never done a custom piece before." She quickly contradicted me and said, "Yes you have! Don't you remember that fiddlehead painting you did for me?" "Oh, yeah," I said, "and I did that Strength collage for Julia, too!" I was starting to feel better about things, but these were pieces made for people who I know and love (and who know and love me back), rather than for a total stranger. Jen reassured me and I decided to just do what came naturally and not to overthink things...just make it the way I would any other collage.

I had to go on a Scrabble tile hunt because I was a letter short (the "H" was the one I didn't have, interestingly enough) but that was successful, and then I got to work. The piece came together fairly quickly and I put the finishing touches on it a couple of days after I started it. I contacted Bud to let him know I was going out of town (this was right before my trip to New York City) but that I would be around early the following week. We agreed to meet, and thankfully he loved the piece (entitled "Zhen", of course).

So, here I sit on Christmas Eve, knowing that one of my collages is wrapped and under someone's Christmas tree, waiting to be opened (and hopefully enjoyed) tomorrow morning. That's a pretty cool feeling. Happy holidays, everyone!

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