Working With Clients
If you put your work in front of people and get people’s reaction to it, you take that in and are affected by it. It’s what an artist needs to do. When you do it, your work will change.
I told one client that I’d found a really nice board to use in his project. I cut strips off that board and laminated them to the less-pretty part of the board so the drawer fronts were harmonious. He wrote back to say he had talked to a builder about what I was doing and they agreed that 95% of people wouldn’t notice or appreciate it.
I appreciate that kind of feedback more now; I didn’t know enough when I was younger to appreciate the finer subtleties and differences, and my clients have helped me reach that understanding.
Everyone is an individual. I talk to people about their lives and find that everyone’s life is interesting and everyone is different. No two people are the same, so why should chairs be the same? Why shouldn’t a person have his own chair that’s distinctly his? The only way that happens is by someone like me making that chair, one of a kind, for that specific person.