The Artist’s Life: Visiting a Customer’s Home With Original Art
I sold an original painting to a long-time customer and delivered it this Saturday and got to see other originals and a few prints and gift items she’s bought over the years and spend a wonderful afternoon, which was quite a nice experience.
Most of the time I never see my original art after I sell them, and that’s okay. I have prints and I have the digital files, and as I’ve said before I need to let them go before I can create more. It’s just as much a joy when a painting goes to a good, loving him as it is when one of my foster cats do. But there’s a part of me in each one of them and it’s great to see them again in a new space. Also, it gives me a new perspective on my art when I see it in a new space outside of my crowded little house.
Click any of the paintings to read more about them.
She purchased “Sunday Morning,” a pastel that I painted back in 1989, which I recently featured here. It was an experimental sketch in a style I wanted to work out, and mostly done from life, which I’d never done before at that time. I had recently painted “Waiting for Mom” and was shocked at what I could produce, but I also wanted to loosen up from that photorealistic style and get a little Impressionism in there. So that morning when I saw Moses on the bed (she never did that, sleeping out in the open!) I ran and got my (film) camera and took photos for posterity and reference, but then I decided to work up a painting right then and there, got some paper and a drawing board and my pastels and got to work.
“You have a real piece of my history! You know Moses was my ‘first feral’ rescue, before I even knew what a feral was. That’s a real connection too,” I emailed her when I received her order. She’s also been TNRing cats in her neighborhood and has had them living outdoors in her yard for years. She’s always one to support me when I do a big TNR project, and I’ve been loaning her my traps to trap this mom and litter of kittens in her yard.
It’s quite a big pastel sketch, 19″ x 26″, with a big mat around it in a 30″ x 36″ frame. I was doing crazy things with mats in the early 90s, and this one is 5″ wide and has colors inlaid on one layer and a top mat in white with sections cut out to show what was underneath. This painting is too big for any other spot in my house so it’s been hanging in my studio where the ceilings are 10 feet high for nearly all the years I’ve lived here, so Moses could watch over me as I worked up there.
Since it was so big, and she lived close, I offered to deliver it. To both our surprises, the colors matched her living room purrfectly!
She’s purchased quite a few original feline paintings over the past decade, so here is the original art I got to see again.
She’s the person who purchased Bath, Interrupted! She had to wait until Mariposa was finished with the rounds of all the art exhibits.
And she also bought one of my other very recent paintings: Tri Color Girls Settling Down for a Nap.
Then, over a decade ago, in the first few months of my daily cat sketches, I did a quick little sketch of Kelly napping that I titled “Kelly in Warm Colors.” Just recently I featured this little sketch in one of my posts here, and I couldn’t remember who had purchased it. I knew it was someone local and I remembered talking to her at an event years ago, then as if to answer me I saw the painting again today!
I painted “Interior With Cat in 2000, a painting that was intended to me an interior scene, but Sophie was sitting and looking out the door, and I couldn’t NOT add her in if she was actually there, and that’s why it’s titled “Interior With Cat.”
Linoleum block prints aren’t originals in the same way paintings are, but each print is unique, and I hand-color these, so I count “Spring Kitten” among the originals.
And this one isn’t a cat but it’s a scene we both love—forsythia blooming in the spring, just a little 6″ x 6″ sketch.
And then prints of two paintings, “Summer Sunset, Robinson Run” on the left wall and “Spring” on the right wall.
And a print of “Safe,” my pastel of the deer in my back yard.
She also had a selection of gift items too! It was all pretty exciting for me to see so much of the things I usually only see here at my house or clustered together in one of my events.
I had also taken two of my traps over to her to get two of the kittens from the litter she’d trapped most of and mom last autumn, and I got to see one of them out in the back of her house, and we talked about trapping plans for them, and extra possibilities for surgeries if she couldn’t get them for their surgery dates. And we talked about trapping in general and lots of other cat things. Her husband came home from his walk though it was dark and kind of drizzly, so the three of us just carried on a conversation for the next several hours. I knew they’d gone hiking and bicycling, and I’ve vowed I am not going to work every minute of this coming year so we’ll have plans for getting out there. I look forward to sharing some of my favorite spots and seeing some of theirs too. Wow, I haven’t had the chance to visit anyone in years, and not just because of the pandemic but also my hip before that, so what a wonderful afternoon.
And I got to meet Creamsicle, who will be 20 years old this March! He was a feral who spent his first 17 years living outside in her back yard until she brought him inside for good and he’s pretty happy about that. She and her husband are planning a birthday party for him!
Getting to visit some of my artwork and a customer’s home and cats and pass a dreary winter afternoon in good company is part of the artist’s life too. Of course my cats weren’t happy when I got home and they’d missed their daily dental treat party, but I made it up to them with an earlier supper than usual and some extra treats. I’ll be home all day Sunday and we can get back to normal with things. As normal as they can be with me and my sometimes erratic schedule messing things up.
Where to find this original art
Each of the images is linked to an article about it with a link to where to purchase a print.
Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals
Fine Art • Photography • Gifts • Greeting Cards • Books • Commissioned Portraits & Artwork
If you’ve made it this far through all the art in this post, thanks for reading, and I’d like to share my January Creative Cat Preview Newsletter with special savings on original feline artwork, which is where my customer saw the painting she purchased. Click here to read more and take advantage of the savings. Also, sign up to receive the newsletter monthly or so, so that you can see what’s new before everyone else and have the first chance to purchase, and discounts on other items.
Copyright
All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
Subscribe to my e-newsletter
Subscribe to The Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter.
© 2022 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski
Weekly schedule of features:
Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life
Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters
Tuesday: Rescue Stories
Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork
Thursday: New Merchandise
Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy
Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats
And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!
Pingback: The Artist's Life: Sold Original, "Sunday Morning," and That Exhibit
Pingback: The Artist's Life: Sold Original, "Sunday Morning," and That Exhibit - The Creative Cat
I really was, especially the older paintings that I haven’t seen for a while. All of them feature my own rescues, fosters, loves and it was wonderful to visit. Thanks for stopping!
That really had to be rewarding to see your art in an environment you envisioned during your creative process.
And the woman who “adopted” it has rescued many cats and even knows my cats. It’s really special!
A delightful collection, so many wonderful pieces. I can but imagine how delighted you were to meet old friends so nearby. Bath Interrupted, Sunday Morning, and Kelly in Warm Colours, are my favs, but it really is so difficult to separate and choose. No wonder your buyer has so many.
ERin