One Step Closer and My First Commision :)

To say the very least I'm one VERY EXCITED girl!! :) Do ya remember back around Christmas I made our next door neighbor Nari a decoupaged collage of her two grand babies for her Christmas gift?? Well unbeknown to me since then all of the extended families have been in to see it. Not only family but so has all the neighbor ladies paraded by the collage :) Thankfully they all gave it their stamps of approval :) Now this is amazing awesome and darn cool. :)

This morning LW told me Neri was down at the gate and wanted to talk to me. Sure enough there she was. <<>> Neri has two large B&W photos of she and Heraldo (her husband) when they were 20 years old taken just before they were married. She also had a large wooden plank that had an old soccer team poster glued to it. What she wanted to know was if I could put the 2 pictures on the plank for her like I did the baby pictures.

She realized the two pictures where wider then the plank and not as tall. So she said it would be okay to cut the pictures so they fit. and it was okay if some of the soccer poster had to stick out on the bottom. We talked for a few minutes, where she told me that on January 27th it was their 35th wedding anniversary, and it would be really nice to have the two pictures hanging on the wall. Okay are you getting choked up cuz I am? Remember this is a country where a great many fathers are not present 3 years after they marry much less 35 years!!

I told her I would love to do that for her and when did she want them, of course I already knew the answer was "no rush" it's just the way here ;) Then she asked me how much I would charge. Oh no I said please let me do this as a gift. I was walking on a bit of air as I came back up to my little art corner! I mean me a foreign (Gringa in some circles ) woman had earned enough trust and respect to be entrusted with a very important piece of a family's heritage :) Damn cool is all I got to say!! :)

I spent the afternoon thinking about what to do. It was very obvious that these were not the original pictures but photographs of the originals. There was some spots that were in the copy not on the copy. It also looked as if these where taken because the originals where not in viewable shape (Yes I know it's not a word but this is my world). Boy I didn't feel one bit good about cutting these if they were the only copies. SO down the stairs, out the gate, two steps to the right, and knock on Neri's gate. Sure enough these are the only copies. So then we talked a bit about me making copies and working from those. The only thing was they would be smaller. The originals are 11/14. So then I asked her if maybe she had some wedding pictures that she might like to have put with the two portraits... huge smile, Si si then will you make it like the one you did of the Ninos (babies) ?? Yes that's what I was thinking.

A couple of hours later another knock on my gate and Neri has 4 wedding day pictures :) SO this evening I have had the grandest time scanning and cleaning up these pictures. Which I might add is a big accomplishment in the first place. :)What I know about photos, scanning, photoshop etc on any computer can be fit on the head of a pin :(

This is Heraldo's Grandmother, isn't she just too cute. Of course if she was any thing like my Italian grand aunts she's a real tiger in a kitten outfit!! :)

Now you know what I mean I have my very first commission from a member of our adopted culture. A culture that is polite to a fault that tends not to allow strangers access to their private lives, and reserves their respect and trust for the members of their family and culture. It might seem like a little thing, being asked to create this collage, but to me it means that I have earned a degree of trust and respect !!! :) :)

LIFE IS GOOD!!!! :)

Have a most audacious day or evening my Bloglandian buddies depending on where in the world you are ;)