I recently finished a commission for my cousin. Commissions are interesting, and in some important ways quite different from a non-commissioned piece of art. When I do a painting, I am responding completely to my own vision, to what the scene means to me, to what inner experience I hope to express, to my own inclinations about color and emphasis. Then I put the painting out into the world and hope that someone who also finds it meaningful will see it. Of course, they may find a completely different significance than the one I intended. So there is a random quality to whether my vision also speaks to the viewer.

With a commission, in a way I am co-creating a vision with the buyer. Ultimately, it is my image, of course, and I will make the painting in a way that reflects my own style and artistic sensibilities. But I go into the painting trying to do what I can to express the buyer’s vision as well. My cousin has a good eye and was able to be quite collaborative with me. So after I made the painting, we worked together to refine some of the details until it felt right to her.

For this painting, there is a sycamore tree that my cousin particularly loves, and she wanted a portrait of it. She’d written a poem about the tree, so I had a rich source of information about what the tree meant to her and how she felt about it. She sent me photos, including photos of the background that she would like. Here is the result:

My cousin asked for some of the details, including the dove perched in a lower branch and the sailboat. I made both subtle, because I did not want to distract the eye from the tree. Better that they should be small surprises that the viewer finds a moment later. And she asked for changes in the color of the tree’s branches — sycamores do not grow here, so her specificity about what looked right was helpful. What you cannot see in this photo are the iridescent pastel colors that I added, wanting to give a bit of shimmer to the scene, especially in the water and the tree. The tree is beautiful, I think, in the painting and in its own right. I hope to see it “in person” the next time I visit her!