One of the most pleasurable types of work I do is designing and creating art for a specific person, couple or business. Drawing from my prior career experiences in organizational development, educational design and management, coaching and leading teams, and my over 20 years studying philosophy, I have developed the skills of listening to people and discerning what has meaning for them, what brings deepest satisfaction to their lives, and then designing works of art that will signify and represent that meaning and satisfaction.
Given that my clients are not all local, I have developed a process of working with long-distance clients to design and create such works of art. Here is the story of one of these art works.
Dawn Repola and Dan Hancock of Littleton, Colorado, asked for a special work of art to celebrate and signify their appreciation of each other and their years of marriage together. Through my design process we decided the piece would reference one of Dawn and Dan’s favorite activities – cooking together. Southwestern fare is their favorite. They grow tomatoes and peppers in their garden so their culinary creations are fresh with just-off-the-vine vegetables. Growing the vegetables, experimenting with different types of tomatoes and peppers each year, discovering new recipes, and cooking together is one of the activities and rhythms of life that strengthen Dawn and Dan’s marriage and friendship. We decided the artwork would include tomatoes and peppers to celebrate this aspect of the life they have built together.
Once we settled on this general idea, I went to work on the design of the artwork. Working with yarn and colored paper, I sketched the layout of the piece on my big table. This enabled me to “see” the piece in actual scale and to know how many of each type of tomato, pepper and leaf I would need. Throughout this process, I emailed Dawn and Dan photos of the work in progress so they could be involved in its creation.
Dawn and Dan’s home is decorated in burgundy, teal and sienna, and their other works of art are equally as rich in color. Their art piece would need to be robust in color and form to stand up within this colorful environment. I researched tomatoes and peppers online. I spent a good deal of time experimenting with various combinations and layers of colored glass to achieve a variety of reds from the deep wine reds of heirlooms to the sunny orange-reds of the jubilees.
Slowly but surely, glass tomatoes, peppers and leaves replaced their paper stand-ins on the table. Metal vines replaced the yarn. I made glass vine sections and built clusters of the tomatoes and peppers that would hang on the metal vines.
Eventually all the parts were complete and the piece ready to ship. I traveled to Colorado to install it with Dawn and Dan. I thoroughly enjoyed the delight of Dawn and Dan discovering their piece, cluster by cluster as we unpacked and installed.
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I titled the piece Picante (definition: prepared so as to be very hot and spicy) in reference to the zest Dawn and Dan bring to their life together. Picante now resides in their living room, celebrating Dawn and Dan’s marriage and partnership and it’s continued growth.
