commission a work of art

I commissioned a series of Todd’s B&W photos a while back. They arrived this week. I love them—particularly now that they’re printed and up on my wall in my basement studio. I may have to get smaller frames in the future. My photo of the photos is horrible, but you get the picture.

Francesca sent me a preview of the piece which is almost done… and it looks beautiful. I love it! It looks like I may be able to name the piece as well as a few places on it. Yay! I’ve requested a slightly larger image to help with this, but I’ve already got a bunch of ideas.

The inspiration for this commission (on my end) is artificial cities and communities. I thought it fit well with Francesca’s style since this is essentially a map that has been cut up and reconstructed from other cities, oceans, and bays. In my silly story, Man Versus Himself (wikipedia) there is a city named Andom Bay that is basically a city owned and run by the protagonist (Anselm Betty)... and he also creates a city within the city named Little Anhedonia (wikipedia). I love artificial cities, and when talking about this commission Francesca and I sent links back and forth on my hometown of Irvine, Celebration, Florida, New Songdo, and Dubai’s crazy World Islands. One of the best things about these crazy communities is that they also employ very deliberate and altruistic/futuristic/naturalistic naming-schemes. I grew up on Songbird then moved to Falling Star and Springbrook, for example.

So, in the spirit of radical self improvement, I may inject a few philosophies into the landscape as well. In It To Win It Lake. Accept All Offers Drive. Going For Broke Hill. They may all be rejected though. I’ll have to Sleep On It Valley.

What do you all think?

i found myself madly intrigued with a piece of art a friend had, then a few weeks later i got invited to an art opening..i could not get her style out of my mind! she does fabulous two dimensional HUGE pieces of art, that are of local architecture ..love this style! so i decided as a treat to me for getting a temp full time gig to commission this fabulous artist to do a great piece on one of my favourite local buildings!!!!!! it will be beautiful!

My girlfriend and I share a friend in the Detroit area that we’ve been dying to ask to create a painting for our living room. It is time to take the first step.

my friend fred’s roommate creates these awesome paintings of horses (yes i know there’s that little girl connection to my little pony) i have this photo that i would love to have as a canvas oil (i think juergen teller or lisa eisner shot it, i’m not quite sure – i just ripped it out of a nyt magazine spread at least 3 years ago). anyway just caught up with fred and he’s convinced me to get an original painting done. one of the photographs that i have now, which is taking up prime real estate on my walls, needs to get retired.

My artist of choice has a big show coming up in December, in San Francisco, so my piece won’t be started until after that. To survive, I purchased one of her smaller maps at her Viveza show.

Over the past dozen years or so, I’ve commissioned lots of works of art. Some I’ve been very happy with, and others I’ve been less so. My latest commission was from artist J.A. Fludd.

I’m talking with Francesca Berrini about a possible commission for one of her maps.

I really liked that scene in Royal Tenenbaums where Owen and Luke are sitting in Owen’s apartment having an awkward conversation and as the camera switches between their looks of confusion there are these large, very expressive paintings in the background. After some research I found out that the paintings were by Miguel Calderon. Not sure how that relates directly to this goal, but I think it would be fun to find an artist that I like (preferably local) and commission a new painting. I would like to see how such a collaboration would pan out.