marrael

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In September of last year, I stopped taking any art commissions (after some custom charity art was done and ultimately rejected by a local who couldn't pay but also expected me to be a mind reader--*summary below). It was a very, very painful episode for me, not just about the time I lost working on it but was still expected to give in order to "fix" it, but the feedback I was given where I did not do anything right. Even knowing that the way things turned had not been my fault (aside from my stupidity of promising the art in the first place), it was invoking a deep, personal and longstanding problem I know I have--I'm attached to pleasing people.

I want people to like what they're getting. Because it's shitty in any situation where you don't, and you're paying for it! The best art commissions are collaborations where all involved are happy with the results. Not so good ones are where one party comes out not-so-thrilled--and I'm always trying to make sure that if/when that happens, it's me.

So, I don't love everything I've produced. It's no one's fault. In art-making as in anything else, there are opportunity costs that come from producing a picture a certain way as opposed to another: maybe an illustrated scene could have been better shown in a different composition, another point-of-view. Maybe another scene should have been picked. Maybe different colours, different lighting, a different mood, a different medium, or heck, a different artist altogether. But even that different artist runs through their own set of considerations where some choices made mean some other options were given up.

If you're not the artist, you may not be aware of quite all the choices available. Some people (and it's OK) go into commissioning art with the result they want fixed in their heads already--every detail, every colour, every shade, the faces (photos provided), the angles at which all objects are seen, the textures of the clothing and hair, the placement of everything inside the picture space. The artist then doesn't need to provide input--everything's been decided. For the art buyer, it's fantastic when they've got the absolute certainty that the painting they're getting out of those choices they've made is the best one for their purposes.

But sometimes the artist disagrees.

It can't be helped. The artist is the person who's been used to making their own choices what a good picture looks like. They've chosen their medium; their style's been developed out of an infinite variety of ways of painting, (and most of) their past works are the record of (1) their visionary skill, (2) their technical skills and (3) their personal aesthetics. The non-artist circumvents (1) and (3) the more stubbornly and comprehensively they control what the picture must be. Often even (2) is stifled when the composition and details (including all the colours!) desired go against what the artist knows works.

I've done pictures like that. (I am not working on anything like that right now, thank goodness.) Generally they're not as enjoyable as working on pictures where I'm given more free rein, but I'm grateful for the work. When the results are as the buyer wanted but inferior to other possibilities it could have been, and that I would have been happier to attach my name to, I just don't announce the new painting or help promote the book it's attached to, etc. There's no pride or feeling of ownership. In bad cases, I don't even want the artist credit for the work!

It's extreme (but not all that rare) cases that I'm describing here, and I don't know if I get them because I'm a small fry or if the best artists get these commissions as well. Maybe the best artists don't have to take commissions, or at least, this kind of commissions, or they do whatever they want anyway and just blow away the art buyer with their mad skillz so much that they forget what they wanted.

It could also be breaking self-marketing rules to ask such questions publicly, but I'm just curious.

Also, if you're an art buyer or potential art buyer reading this, just ask yourself if you trust the artist you're hiring. Do you like the art that they've done? If you do, let them work and trust (at least some of) their decision-making skills. If you don't, find another artist. If you want one artist to paint like another artist, don't. Just don't.


* Summary: The original blog entry is protected. Singapore being the small country that it is, there are some circles I move in that could guess the identity of the art-buyer (a term I use loosely) in question, and for all I know, I may be the only artist who had a bad experience. Anyways, to sum up: The artwork was gratis, done at a time I was hugely busy--the Field Guide to Surreal Botany had just been printed--and also, suddenly, the no-deadline work had a deadline, and what were loose guidelines for a work that was supposedly up to the artist's vision turned out not to be at all. The guy was asking for a complete rework for a large, digitally-painted art piece that was free, from a person who could not and should not have spared the time, and the changes wanted were for subjective, personal tastes and expectations he had not shared with the artist earlier. Now you know!

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And I've just sent a bitchy reply to yet another one of my tour company's emails asking me to do tours during my third trimester.

How the fuck do these people sleep at night?

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(Or, The Affluenzas)



Yeah, I've read both books. They've got the same title, they both talk about consumerism on the effects on personal life and society, yet they read as differently as chalk and cheese. My thoughts about them have been percolating for a while.

I read PBS' Influenza (cover on the left) first, about three years ago. By then, my "hippie" and environmental reading was at the point where PBS' exploration of Affluenza was like a baby book--not an insult, but it was written much like a beginner's guide to consumer culture, and generally approached the reader as someone suffering Affluenza, who needed diagnosis, an introduction to the disease, and lots of very clear illustrations on the pervasiveness of the disease. Then it also gave cures, again with very clear instructions, suggestions like regular de-cluttering, volunteering with the less fortunate, and working less.

(BTW, those of you who have watched the Story of Stuff will have covered the environmental side of consumer culture. So again, the subject won't be new.)

PBS' Affluenza is a good book, one that I'd recommend, but mostly to those who would be considered comfortably inside the mainstream of society and who don't usually read "difficult" books. It's got a friendly tone, humour, illustrative examples and cute anecdotes... and doesn't go into the "radical" territory of covering child labour, the dark side of globalisation, or corporations meddling in politics/violence/inequality (ie. it's like the more approachable sibling of Naomi Klein's No Logo).

Oliver James' Affluenza, on the other hand, is a book that is much less US-centric (James being a British writer and documentary producer) and in fact explores Affluenza's impact in about a dozen countries around the world, including Britain, the US and Singapore. It's got more attitude, it doesn't shy away from alienating the plebes, it goes deeper in the discussion of the effects of consumer culture on psychology, happiness, alienation, prejudice, education (or programming, as the case may be), creativity and humour. Mind you, it's got a bit of hyperbole, because his commentary on the effects of consumerism in various countries was 75% based on one or two citizens per country, with the remaining 25% based on studies and statistics that he could obtain for each country. (On a side note, the person from Singapore whom he studied sounded like a real empty-headed bean counter with no sense of humour.)

It's nutty, but my liking of James' book went on a roller-coaster ride as I read it: I loved it, then hated it (in one chapter he kept referring to Singapore's ex-PM erroneously as "Lee Kuan" and "Mr. Yew"), then liked it, and months now after returning the book to the library, I love it again, because one of the big ideas in the book now makes a lot of sense. It's this:

There are people who can only find value in activities and objects by having that value told to them. And there are people define the values of things by their own measure. Extrinsic vs intrinsic values.

It goes further than consumer culture--this ability to find intrinsic values (as opposed to simply accepting extrinsic values defined by others, and corporations) is an ability either encouraged or completely suppressed by cultural norms, parental upbringing, education systems and a society's media. The more of this ability you have, the easier it is to define your own happiness, to do things just for fun's sake, to be active in one's community, to think outside the box, be adaptable, etc etc.

Babies and toddlers left to their own devices will develop the ability to find intrinsic value in stuff. They become hugely interested in things like empty cardboard boxes or wrappers--ignoring the expensive toys wrapped within--Sorry, that toy's monetary or educational value won't convince them even if explained. Nothing external is going to sway the kid's opinion. He or she has assigned an intrinsic value to the cardboard tube and ain't letting go of it.

You realize where this is going... kids as they grow up get the "real" values of things hammered into them--by their parents, their peers, their heroes and idols on TV. In a highly commercialized and materialistic society, severe Affluenza will render a person incapable of defining happiness outside of having/owning stuff or the ability to buy stuff. And the value of the stuff they must have is dictated by TV, magazines, trends, and basically, everything external. These people don't buy paintings or decor for their houses depending on what they like. They buy stuff on the basis of the stuff's price-tags and prestige. They take jobs based on the pay and prestige. Their own value depends on their pay, their possessions and prominence in society. They measure themselves with this, and may tend to see and judge others by what they own and wear too.

Without sounding (too) snarky, these people would be easily swayed by perceived authority. They would shun grassroots movements or blogs by no-names (no intrinsic value there), they don't read books that aren't on bestseller lists, would tend toward heavy-headed political ideologies and parental behavior. Religion, if pursued, would be in the paternalistic vein, etc etc. They don't pay a lot of attention to issues or people that are "beneath" them or different from them--there's no value or benefit there. And so they would continue until someone higher up the societal ladder instructs them otherwise.

I'm sure some of this is beginning to sound familiar... or is it just me? It doesn't matter if your passion is politics, religion, racism, sexism or just plain shopping... I know you know people who fit this description. (They can be intelligent people, but have you ever felt there's an some aspect of their perception or thinking that's... I dunno, atrophied?)

The ability to find intrinsic value varies from person to person and isn't uniform in all areas of one's life. The ability can also be encouraged or discouraged, developed or suppressed... and plenty of governments, large multinational corporations, media companies and lucrative religious organisations benefit from having it suppressed.

You see why I love Oliver James' book. It has its faults, and it isn't for everyone, but the intrinsic vs extrinsic value stuff, once I thought about it more, has been fitting all the situations and behaviors I've been looking at since reading the book. Mind you, this has been my take on it.

And I also know all the people on my friends list don't lack the intrinsic-value-finding ability.

It's just the crowd I roll with. ;)

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From The Problem Of Apology (Part 2) at The Atlantic, one comment from a reader jumped out at me about -ists:

Col. Mike  (Replying to: eric k)  June 15, 2009 5:36 PM

Yeah, they think being PC is just avoiding being caught by the thought police. They don't understand that it requires an honest accounting of one's own prejudices and preconceptions. It requires empathy. It requires the simple knowledge and recognition that non-whites, non-Christians and non-hetero people are indeed human.

All that. Yes.

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