On 1 Nov 2004 11:11:50 -0800, (Mutt) wrote:

what's worse is making something, giving it as a gift, then getting it
back as a gift later because they forgot that you gave it to them...
painful!!

Your customer is the gift giver who is paying you, not the recipient.
While its always nice for the ultimate recipient to appreciate your
work, there is always the chance they will hate whatever you do and
throw it into a closet and never use it. For example, how many gifts
have you given where the person has come back and said this is a POS
and not to my taste? Not many, they either like it or put it in the
closet or give it as a gift to someone else. So please the giver,
make her a box similar (or better) to the one she has seen and she'll
be very happy I am sure. Send her a drawing of what you want to make,
get her okey-dokey and then do it.


Mutt

Leuf wrote in message . ..
I've recently been offered my first chance to do a commisioned piece,
up until now I've only done woodworking as gifts for family and
friends. She is a friend of my sister's that saw the jewelry box I
did for her last year and she wants one to give as a gift. I gave a
tentative yes and said we could talk about the design over the next
couple of weeks while I finish up my current projects.

The thing is she doesn't seem to have any idea what she wants. With
family/friends it's easy enough to come up with ideas for what they
would like. I know them. I've been in their homes. I've seen their
stuff. And I don't have to go through a process of communicating with
them, I just make it and they either like it or not. Here I am twice
removed from the person who is actually going to get the piece, which
I find a little disconcerting. I'm lacking enough input to get the
creative juices flowing. All I've gotten is "she loves work made by
New England artisans." Right, could you vague that up for me a
little?

It's also more difficult because she is on the other side of the
country and our primary communication is by email. I do not have a
large volume of work that I can show her, I've only done the one
jewelry box, and only recently have I had a digital camera with which
to take pictures. I suggested to her to have a look online to try to
find something she likes, and suggested one site that I had looked at
when I made the first one. That was over a week ago and she hasn't
gotten back to me yet.

I am not really sure what are the right questions to ask to get at
what they want. I tried to just keep it general for starters so as
not to bog her down with functional details, but maybe I should be
doing it the opposite way?


-Leuf