I’m basically your average person.  I have this idea that I probably need to have a little money in order to keep myself alive and in some semblance of comfort.  Now while I am not beneath doing things I hate in order to earn said money, I would much prefer to do thing I enjoy and make money that way.  I would probably be able to get over the feeling that I was cheating.

            So I have my profile and portfolio posted online as a freelance artist.  Jobs are posted from people who need illustration done, usually for books, and I respond by kowtowing to them with offers of cheap illustrations done beautifully.  I have yet to actually be accepted for one of these jobs, though one guy did write back and ask for a sample.  Here is what he wanted for me to draw: “A picture of a guy with a still-life for a head looking at a standing skeleton holding a medusa head toward him.�  Okay.  He also wanted this done in the style of Gary Larson of Farside comics.  It’s not my job to question, just to do.

            Now as straightforward as his request may seem, there are a few tricky aspects to it.  First off for a scene this… narrative, it would help to have some back-story in order to set a tone for the scene.  For instance, what is the relationship between the standing skeleton and the still-life guy?  I generally infer that if a skeleton is walking around flashing medusa’s head to people, that he is something of a scamp, so I decided that their relationship is adversarial.  Now Medusa’s head it reputed to be so ugly it turns the viewer to stone.  In this image, however, the two potential viewers may be immune to this power.  One is a skeleton, and so far as I know, it has sockets rather than eyes, so it’s not likely to be able to “see� medusa’s serpentine locks in the strictest sense of the word.  The other guy has a still life as a head, and while the rules of still-lives are pretty open, eyeballs are generally not part of the menu, so to speak.  Perhaps legend has misled us with the whole ‘flesh-to-stone’ thing.  Medusa may have been so ugly that she actually turned the viewer’s head into a rumpled tablecloth with a vase of lilies.  Which leads into the next problem: what exactly does he want for the still life head?  As I mentioned, the rules for a still life are pretty general.  A still life is usually an arrangement of inanimate objects, generally within a domestic setting, that have been set up specifically to be painted.  Now with the body of a man, this particular still life is mobile rather than still.  However, he IS looking at Medusa, which may mean that at this point he is frozen and whatever is on his head can now take on the true title of still life.  Also, did he want the man’s head to be an arrangement of objects commonly associated with still life, or did he want his head to be an actual painting OF a still life?  While I appreciate the artistic irony of featuring art within art, the philosopher in me decided that this was a man who was becoming a still life, and therefore his head would be an inanimate object.  I chose a fruit basket.  My thought was that if this guy wanted the guy’s head to be a painting, he would have said so.  Rather, he said ‘still life’ which is more open to interpretation.

            Well, it turns out this guy was confused and upset by the fact that I put a fruit basket on the man’s head.  His words to me were “A still life is a painting.  You put a fruit basket on his head.�  Now having painted a still life or two in my time, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what they were.  Besides of which, I was not aware I was being graded on my ability to interpret his vague instructions.  So I brushed this point aside.  This hurt his feelings.  He responded ‘I’m sorry, but we obviously disagree on what a still life is.  I don’t consider this a small detail.  I don’t feel we can work together.  I can only imagine what our differences will be on things like ‘Explosive Art.’’  So another artist got the job.

            While losing the job doesn’t really bother me, I did have an overwhelming urge to continue arguing with this guy in the manner to which I am accustomed, wherein the ultimate rebuttals lie within the land of ‘stinky poopy-head.’  I refrained.  Wisely, I feel.

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