#i cannot tell you the amount of short term pets i've had because of his antics

[selfinflictedgunshotwound]

my dad brought home a stray kitten 😑

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I've had the misfortune to run into someone incredibly unpleasant after opening emergency commissions, and since they've already payed me and I really do need the money I can't exactly avoid/block them. Have you ever had to deal with someone like that while writing? Maybe not in the context of commissions, but in general? How would you advise navigating conversations with them, especially for someone with severe anxiety?

Hi anon,

I’m so sorry you find yourself in this position. <3

I haven’t had to deal with this with writing (at least, not...in a comparable way), but I have had to deal with this a couple of times as an artist.

Firstly, it’s really tough, and there’s no easy way of dealing with these things. Obviously refunding them means giving up a resource you need, and that will be stressful; I wish it was an option, but obviously there are times when this is just not possible. And working with them will be stressful, so the best things to do (and this is my feelings on the matter) are to basically minimise stress by ending this experience as soon as possible, and also put some rules in place to help prevent the same situation from happening in the future (I’ll have some suggestions on that in a minute).

(The rest is under a read more, sorry phone users!)

The first thing is, I don’t know how they’re being unpleasant (i.e. mean about your art / asking for too many changes / being entitled etc. everything I’ve just said and more). But...ugh, man this sucks and I am sorry again. Also everything I’m saying, these are just suggestions. Feel free to ignore anything that doesn’t seem workable for you, okay? You need to do you, I’m just writing...my thoughts out basically. *offers hugs*

If they’re being super demanding re: changes to an image/sketch, be realistic to them. Don’t make it personal, just say something like: ‘You have paid for my style, and this is in my style, I can only make so many changes until the piece will no longer work. Please be realistic and patient.’

Since it sets off severe anxiety to interact with them, set aside a limit of the amount of time per day or week you will talk to them about the commission. Ten minutes a day maximum. Or five minutes. After that, if they persist, say you are you know, working on their project, living your life, working on other things etc. Don’t be at their beck and call. And establish some space for yourself outside of them - do things away from Tumblr or Twitter or wherever they ‘live’ on the internet. Basically, enforce boundaries for yourself - this may feel stressful in the short term, but in the long term it will give you habits that will create havens where you can be anxious, but aren’t necessarily constantly feeling like you have to check in with this person. Because you don’t have to. Their money doesn’t mean they own you, or any more of your time than what you are doing commission wise.

With the conversations themselves, there’s other things you can try:

- If you have a friend you really trust, have them with you (online or offline) when you talk to this client. Say something like ‘this will be my ten minutes with the client can I relay this conversation to you / can I lean on you while this is happening’ etc. Or alternatively, make sure to reach out to someone after you’ve spoken with this client. If you have any pets, go and pet them. If there’s a tree you really like, hang out with it. It sounds like the client feels really ‘big’ energy wise, in terms of occupying your thoughts and worries, so I guess my suggestion here is to...gently work against that in a way which is like engaging a support structure.

- Talk to other artists about what they suggest. A lot have learned different boundary setting practices, and we all have different ways of dealing with this stuff.

- Put the conversations to a timer, focus on getting whatever changes/comments needed as soon as possible and when the timer goes up, ‘I have to go now, I need to call X / do some work on X project / do chores’ or whatever. Try to keep everything focused on the art (even if they’re being an asshole about it).

- Remind yourself that as soon as the project is over, you never have to work with this person again.

- Vent about it in a controlled manner. Like, consider a journal or paper or word document (i.e. not somewhere they can see) and just venting about the client, for a set time (like 5/10 minutes) and then walk away and go make yourself something to drink and try and focus on something else for a little while.

In the future, put in place the following if you haven’t already:

- Limit the amount of edits you’re willing to do on the art / sketch. They’re paying for your style, if they keep telling you to change it, they clearly have no idea how the artistic process works. Which is true for many clients, who learn through good boundary setting on behalf of the artist (or they walk away to make room for other clients). I limit myself to 3 changes during the sketch process and that’s it. But I worked in traditional art - too many changes ruins the paper, and I work in ink, so once we hit that point, I literally cannot make changes. Obviously things are generally different for digital - but be upfront about the amount of changes they’re allowed at different stages of the process.

- State you will keep a certain amount of payment once changes etc. commence. I.e. if they pay you a certain amount, and you’ve done work / made some changes and they go ‘nope no thanks’ - you still keep 50% (o whatever amount) for time spent on the project. Stating this up front prevents time wasters.

*

Ugh, I feel like none of this is helpful, anon. It’s just a really crappy situation to be in? :/

And even with commission clients who are great, there’s always elements of anxiety. Putting in a lot of boundaries for yourself in the future can help, and for now, I think doing what you’re doing - reaching out for help (not just me, ask some other creative folk too) - is really good and very brave. You are definitely not alone. A lot of artists have had crappy commission experiences.

@sulamoon do you have any additional suggestions? Or do any of the other artists here have suggestions?