71 Years and the Artist
71 Years and the Artist
In the midst of qualifying, hunting, and buying a house; moving; family health issues, (and the rest that life throws at us all) I was asked to create a bulletin cover for the 71st anniversary of the establishment of the church I grew up in.
Well, let me back up a couple steps. Initially, last year, this was created for the 70th anniversary of the church establishing by my mom. She did a colored pencil drawing in about 2.5 hours, as they came to her last minute and asked for something quick. She presented them the results, and they graciously accepted it and used it. When it came to this year, they couldn’t reuse it because it boldly said, “70 Years of Faith”. They asked her to change the text, but now came the problem.
See, mom has retired for all intents and purposes. She has an injury and can’t very well use her left arm, and her right arm is well, commonly incapacitated by health treatments she has to do 3x a week for 4 hours a time. This treatment requires her to be very careful of what she puts her right arm through so as not to damage integral factors to her treatments in the process of unsaid activities. So, in general, she has decided to ultimately retire. Therefore, she no longer had access to the file that was created with the text on it, and no one could locate the original-colored pencil drawing to make a new file. All they had was a washed-out scan / photo of the image that had been printed on a very poor printer and scanned in again.
Not very useful at this point.
The Initial Request
So, my mom approached me to ask if I could help her out. She needed something fast, and she needed it to be like the image above, but don’t put a lot of time into it and make sure it read “71 Years of Faith”.
I agreed to help, of course. She added that they wanted the cross to be visible on this, which is something she added to the file before, and she gave me the next image to reference. I agreed again and set about recreating this.
Again, not a super useful image, but I could see what kind of cross was added to this building for the previous year.
I did point out (multiple times I believe) that this wasn’t the sanctuary, this is the Family Center, and asked if they want the Sanctuary.
She said no that the only thing they said is re-create it with “71 Years of Faith” and she needed me to make sure the cross was on there and visible.
So, I kept creating.
This was what I sent just before calling it done asking if she (or the person at the church who asked for the update) needed changed.
It still needed people, a bit of cleanup work on the edges, but I felt like I was close, and wanted to make sure I was on the right track. She said yes, to finish it up, and so I did.
This is what was presented to the man at the church in charge of everything.
So, what happened then?
Everything was changed. No people, different building (now they want the Sanctuary - of course) and then it will be good… but - “Don’t spend too long on this…”
Granted, the guy admitted he didn’t know what it would take to change it, but he didn’t want me to spend a lot of time on it.
OK, don’t spend a lot of time, or get it right?
That’s what I WANTED to say. As it was, I had already spent 9 or so hours on it… what was “too long”? What he was asking for was pretty much a complete repaint. I was able to reuse some of the layers… namely the trees, grass, sky, and distant greenery background, but the building was going to have to be completely redone. Also, I asked that if I am going to repaint this for a whole new building, was he looking for accuracy? Did he want it just as an impression as these had been done, or what?
“We want it to look like the church,” he said.
“OK, well do you want the cross on the front or back page? Do you want the full sanctuary, or just the cross? If I am going to do it, I want to make what you are looking for.”
So, his final instructions to me read:
Possible changes for the attached bulletin cover: I realize this was originally the family center and we are now trying to change it into the church. Please do not spend an enormous amount of time on this.
We would need to print the cover by the 19th.
1, Cross on the front of the building a little more visible
2. Area where the two people are:
a. remove the people
b. narthex wall - possible hint of stained glass window with a planter box under it
c. wall left of stained glass window a small rendition of a sign on wall
d. possibly add more door(s) entry more like what is there.
3. I believe you said it might be possible to have a little more of the building picture on the front of the cover by turning the picture. ( I may have been dreaming.)
Paper size is legal 11x14
We will do the printing of the cover etc.
Please let me know what you think, We are so happy to have what we have now. AGAIN - PLEASE DO NOT SPEND HOURS ON THIS - I KNOW YOU AND YOUR MOTHER ALL TO WELL.
You may want to talk about this a little more in person. I am the first one to admit that I know very little about what I am asking you to do.
Problems -
11x14 is not legal size paper, so I tried and tried to find out if it was “legal” or 11x14. He kept dancing around that answer.
That is a LOT of changes for not spending “hours on this”.
So, I chose not to tell him how long it would take. This was for the church, and my mom, and for this guy who honestly means the world to me all in all. He’s seen me grow up pretty much my whole life. I know he wasn’t trying to “take advantage”, so I just got down to it and did it.
This was the next draft presented to everyone. Quite a difference, but I was open to them requesting changes - this whole thing was completely different than it started out as.
I was prepared that the size dimensions were not right, but I knew I would be able to adjust the height with the sky and grass etc. I wasn’t too worried about that at this point.
The cross is different if you compare them. This is the “proper” cross that is on the sanctuary.
I was nervous about the stark white of the dove in the stained glass, but he said he wanted it to “look like the church” so I stayed as true and honest to the church’s building details as I could.
When everyone saw it, they said the dove was too white. It’s what your eye jumps to.
Yeah, as I said I knew it could be a problem. In all honesty, it really does stand out like that in reality. It’s the only piece of opaque glass in the whole window. I don’t truly know why the artist or the production team chose to do that, but that’s why it stands out so bad.
But the customer is right, so I gave it a tweak and toned it down a bit. I like it better after the toning was done, but I was a little internally flustered that no one knew that piece stood out like that in reality. I mean seriously - am I the ONLY one who noticed that? It’s been that way for 20? some years and NO ONE has noticed that?
Well, turns out the dimensions were wrong, so I had to do that tweaking, and toning down the dove, but all in all, everything looks good now. I sank another 9-9.5 hours into it getting it to this point, but they loved it.
We got to the day of the service on 6/23/24 and when normally people will toss the bulletins in the garbage after the service, apparently everyone kept theirs. No one knew who did the work, but apparently it was a big hit for the people in the congregation as well.
I helped the handbell choir out for the service but left as soon as we were done playing to come home and help deal with my husband’s health issues, we were fighting through all this, so I didn’t see this happen, but I was told afterwards.
Then the church newsletter came out, and they gave me credit for the artwork on the bulletin.
The church like all of us has gone through a lot. Covid caused the services to have a very small congregation, some moved away for work, some moved to watching online, some passed away, and some just stopped showing up. Nonetheless, this was a special day for a special organization in my life, and I feel proud to have helped make it as successful as it was.
Then the church newsletter came out, and they gave me credit for the artwork on the bulletin.
The church like all of us has gone through a lot. Covid caused the services to have a very small congregation, some moved away for work, some moved to watching online, some passed away, and some just stopped showing up. Nonetheless, this was a special day for a special organization in my life, and I feel proud to have helped make it as successful as it was.
Is there a takeaway to this story?
I think so.
I think the takeaway here is that if something is worth doing, either because the person/group/entity/etc. is something special or because it is something you like/love/want to be doing, it’s worth going for it - full force with everything you have. I sank 18+ hours into something they didn’t want me to spend a lot of time on, but it was worth it. Not for the plaudits, but because it was just worth it to me.
I don’t know that anyone will ever know I created that outside of the few people I interacted with, but I know I gave them the best I could with what I had to work with and the people who were interacting with me were extremely happy with it.
Another takeaway I think that fits here is your customer/client NEVER knows what goes into creating something like this. You have to be willing to weigh your effort/time/investment with what the end result means to you. I in effect volunteered my time. The church didn’t pay me anything, but this would have been a payment of upwards of $450 in time invested. I’m not complaining… that was my contribution to the goal and the cause. It was worth it to me.
And a final little takeaway - after seeing the artwork with the stark white dove on the window the guy I was doing all this for said he finally noticed that it really does stand out like a sore thumb! VINDICATION gained! LOL
Until next time…
Take care of yourselves and each other,
Lucy