ABN
COMMISSION THIS!
HIS!
THE DELICATE DANCE OF PAINTING FOR HIRE
Jivan Lee surveys his work; Lee's Dialogue, with hat BY KEVIN CANFIELD
was painting the entrance of where I was staying at the time, which was my sister's house," Lee recalls. "A neighbor saw that and was like, 'Oh man, would you do that for me?' And that was it." T at was Lee's fi rst time working as
A 34
a commission artist. T ough at fi rst he didn't fi nd the neighbor's place terribly interesting, he agreed to give it a shot.
bout fi ve years ago Jivan Lee (JivanLee. com) decided to create a painting of a home in Mamaroneck, New York. "Just for fun, I
"In this case the house was just not
beautiful to me in the way I would be compelled to paint something," says the New Mexico-based artist. "But I spent an hour or so just sitting there, looking at everything. I found what was compel- ling to me and I made a painting around that. In this particular case there was a beautiful tree right in front of this house that cast a shadow across the entire thing, and that shadow really was what made it possible for me to be inspired while painting." Lee's experience is not unusual. Art-
ists who make a living painting com- missioned pieces—or those, like Lee,
who supplement their income with the occasional commissioned work—are oſt en faced with a unique set of ques- tions: How does my artistic vision mesh with the desires of the client? What kind of input should clients have as I'm paint- ing? And how much input? Every artist has diff erent answers to these queries. Robbi Firestone, a Tacoma, Wash-
ington-based artist who creates what she calls "Spirit Capture Portraits"—these, she says, "focus on one's outer likeness and inner beauty"—has been doing commission work for eight years. Her paintings are inspired by impressionism, and these days, she says, 95 percent of
WINTER 2012