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Several months ago I got a call from a very nice lady.  She was interested in my painting "Bubbles".  She said she and her husband had looked at thousands of paintings on line and in the galleries locally and this was the painting that she wanted.  The only problem was that the size was wrong. 

We spent at least 2 weeks talking and emailing.  I had no problem painting another "Bubbles" for her in the size she wanted.  She wanted to send me swatches of her wallpaper and pieces of stone from her fireplace so I could add these colors into the painting.  She said cost was not an issue.  Her concern was that she wasn't able to bring the painting to her home and put it up on the wall to make sure it was perfect.  She was used to doing this with her local galleries. 

I had no problem with sending her the original painting to try out, but she didn't want to pay for the shipping.  I even went so far as to offer to pay one way for the shipping of the painting.  She even talked of paying me to drive to the bay area.  The bay area for those of you ourside of California is the area surrounding San Francisco.  I live in Phoenix, AZ.  We discussed prints and she finally decided that she would order a small print from www.fineartamerica.com.  This was about a $25.00 investment for her.  Keep in mind that the $4,000.00 commission was not an issue for her.  Her real issue was trust.  She had been taken to the cleaners by her contractor and as far as she was concerned no one deserved trust from her again.  Because of this issue I told her there would be a binding contract between us which would protect both parties and we discussed in detail the provisions of this contract which she agreed to. 

At this point I left her alone because I never want to seem pushy.  I knew it would take a good week or so before she got the print.  After two weeks with the knowledge that she in fact had not ordered the print yet, I called her again and when I couldn't reach her I emailed her with a very short note asking where we were at this point.  I received an email quickly saying that she and her family were on vacation and she would call me as soon as she got home and gave me the date.

I knew from our many hours on the phone that she had small boys so when I didn't get the call after two weeks I assumed she was busy getting them ready for school.  I let it go until after school started and tried to call her again.  No response. 

I had received three very nice unsolicited recommendations on www.linkedIn.com so I decided since her issue was trust that she would feel more comfortable after reading these recommendations about my character.  Still no response.  I  tried calling her one more time and then I quit.

I really don't like being pressured so I would never do that to anyone.  And at this point I had to realize that the commission was off.  Being an artist, we have all learned the ability to take rejection.  If you haven't you need to.  It's essential to survival in the art business.  Just one little email saying sorry, but I found the perfect painting while on vacation would have sufficed. 

Did I go too far?  Was I not pushy enough?   It's all about the learning and perfecting of our craft and that entails learning how to deal with prospective customers.  Closing the deal.  If anyone has any suggestions or insights from their experiences, I would love to hear them.