Friday, December 31, 2010

Inspiration Never Came

Back in late summer, a friend of mine and I met for lunch.  We got talking about food, travels, family, work ... you know, life in general.  Then we got onto the subject of art and paintings.  He said he loves Venice and asked if I can do a painting for him with a Venetian scene.  I told him I would be happy to and was excited for such a project.  He bought me lunch as my "fee" for the commission.  What the heck, he's an old friend.  We left lunch promising to email each other with pictures of Venice and to select the one he would like as a painting.  In my mind, I saw two small frames.  He told me he is remodeling his bathroom and he would display them there.  I am cool with that.  A bathroom gets a lot of traffic and is a key room in the house.  I have one of my favorite little paintings in my bathroom to brighten up the room.  And it does a fine job of it.

Unfortunately, weeks turned into months, and the inspiration of Venice never came.  I don't know why.  Could it be that I have never seen it?  Not familiar with it?  Never thought of visiting it or just not love it as much as my friend, Steve?  Hmmmmmmm.?  Inspiration did come to paint a peaceful sailboat scene.
 

I wrote to my friend and attached a photo, "Steve, I painted you this instead.  I am still working on the inspiration for Venice.  I hope you like it."  He wrote back, "OMG,  I absolutely love this painting!  It's ok.  Artists are temperamental and unpredictable.  I can't believe this is for me and can't wait to get it."

Epilogue - Just a couple of weeks ago, another friend of mine wants to travel to Venice.  I said I'll go along.  We added a few more destinations to our tentative itenarary like the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Louvre in Paris.  Wow!  Venice.  I bet you I will surely get my inspiration then.  "Steve, you will get your Venice paintings, I promise."