I started working on a commissioned painting yesterday. You might be thinking, ‘I didn’t know she does commissions’. I do. I also take wholesale orders. However, I am very picky about whom I work with these days, having been burned on commissions several times, and almost burned on a couple wholesale orders just in the past couple months..remind me to tell the wholesale stories sometime. 

The worst, emotionally, was when I was either set up or scammed by a friend’s daughter 3 or 4 years ago. I didn’t see it coming. Daughter approached me three weeks before Christmas, and asked me to paint her newborn son for her mother..my friend, the baby’s grandmother. I didn’t really know the daughter, but her mother and I wrote email back and forth to each other all day, every day. We were super close or so I thought, but you never really know anyone, do you?

It was very short notice for a custom painting, and I knew I’d have to work fast and tirelessly, but I couldn’t say no. So, I dropped everything, and worked on the painting nonstop, around the clock, until I finished it, and that’s when everything started going south quickly. Daughter told me the check is in the mail, so please ship the painting. She kept checking back in with me to see if I had shipped it yet. I kept checking my post office box, and there was no check. Several days went by, and I asked her when I should expect the check. “It’s in the mail, so just ship the painting now so I can give it to my mother on Christmas.” In a rush she was, but I knew better than to do that. I don’t ship anything I’m commissioned to paint until I’m paid, friend or no friend. I was growing more suspicious by the day. Days turned into weeks. 

She made excuse after excuse..the baby was keeping her up all night..she thought she had written it, but hadn’t..she thought she had mailed it, what did she do with it? It must be lost on her desk somewhere. Every time she emailed me, she had another excuse. It was ridiculous. I remember saying to her, okay, write the check RIGHT NOW then, and get it in the mail. Write me back after you mail it, and give me a tracking number. She never replied. Christmas came and went. I thought of my friend all day Christmas, thinking how it could have turned out so differently, and she could be deciding where to hang the painting. Instead, this. By now, my friend and I had stopped emailing one another. I don’t know what daughter told her, but whatever it was, she turned against me. I was heartbroken. How this could happen to me from someone I thought I could trust?

I have always thought it was the daughter’s way of coming between her mother and me. She was jealous and wanted our friendship to end. Either that or she was a scammer trying to get a free Christmas gift for her mother. I never could decide which it was, but if she wanted to end our friendship, she won. If she wanted a free gift, she failed. Either way, I hope it was worth it to her. 

Not too long after that, I got ripped off by a grandmother on a commission of her granddaughter. Grandma loved the painting, but she thought $150 for 2 weeks worth of work was waaaay too much. She wouldn’t pay. I got stuck with a custom painting nobody else would buy AGAIN. I wasted two weeks of time, plus paint and materials that I could have been using on other paintings. Another very valuable lesson learned there. Do not trust friends, and do not trust grandmothers.

haha Joking!! 🙂 It’s good I can laugh about it now. At the time, I was pretty ticked off. 

There are more stories I could tell, but needless to say, there’s a reason I am picky about whom I choose to work with, and the subject matter I paint. More on this subject to come.