A face-to-face visit is lovely, but not required. I work with clients by phone, the post and email to produce something wondrous. Some of my favorite pieces in fact were made for clients I never met except through their photographs.
Phase 1: Collecting the Back Story
Loss takes many forms. There's loss of a child, or a parent. Loss of a pet. Loss of family or community. Loss of a friendship, and even loss of a dream.
The therapeutic goal of creating a custom memorial portrait or personalized sympathy gift is to help us deal with loss in a transformative way. By balancing respect with humor and grace, invention and imagination, the results can b extraordinary. So my process always begins with photographs and personal materials. As you share the back story with me about each image or personal effect, I will sense which photographs have a higher emotional "temperature" than others. This ultimately informs the selection process and my vision for your healing dreamscape. Sometimes all you may have is a single photograph; in other cases, we may pore through several albums to find inspiration. I will take the lead in identifying the materials that will be iconic or unifying for your healing dreamscape.
Remember that I also can use drawings or other artwork as the backdrop, populating it with people and objects from other photos. In fact, anything at all can go into our photo collage, so long as it can be scanned or shot with a digital camera by you or me.
Here's what I will need from you:
STEP 1. Collect your favorite photos, the ones that have people, pets, places and things that you'd like to see collaged together. If it's a shot of a person, make sure they have as full a body as possible. Stay away from out-of-focus photographs (unless we want to turn it into a dreamy backdrop) or formal portraits (candids reveal the soul so much better than posed shots).
STEP 2. Think about the therapeutic goal. Is your custom healing artwork to celebrate a very special human being? Tell me all the quirky things you know about this person, or couple (in fact, both of you needn't even be in the same photo). Let's talk about favorite meals, styles of dressing, weaknesses (good and bad). Is it to make peace with the past? Bring me older photos of yourself as well as those that caused you anguish. Is it to open a line of communication? Collect a range of photos of yourself and the other individuals involved from approximately the same point in time.
Above all, try to remember as many anecdotes from this time, because many times anecdotes can translate into strong visual ideas for our dreamscape, like the rare steaks that hang from the rafters in Harold D's roast montage.
Here's how one client, Anne H, describes the collaborative process of creating her healing dreamscape:
"Nancy sat down with me and reviewed family albums to pick photos for a collage. She has tremendous empathy and a true artist's eye for patterns ... During our talk, I felt the burden of the past begin to shift as [she] re-envisioned it for me ... Just working with her on the selection began to break up my old, locked-in ways of relating to the photos, and thus to the past."
Special Tip: Next time you are thinking of giving the gift of collage art, but you're afraid you'll forget to send me photos in time, send yourself a RemindMe email. It's absolutely free and easy to set up. Not sure you really need it? Just press the cancel key.
Phase 2: Brainstorming
Email is awful for brainstorming so you and I can either sit across from each other in my studio (Chicago in the Lakeview neighborhood) or at your place. If that's not possible, we can go over materials by phone. I'll tell you which images work together and which won't, and why. We can also decide what other unique objects or backdrops we may want to add from my own photography to make the piece even more whimsical, dramatic, or poignant. Together we'll select particular imagery from your photos - people, pets, landscapes, objects, etc. - to integrate into the whole composition.
Phase 3: I select the final photos
Back in my studio, each of your photos speak through me, the artist. Without fixed positions in mind, I gently play with select images in your photos - all the flotsam and jetsam of a life - until select images migrate to what feels like their natural resting place, while other images are dropped from the piece altogether. Yet it's not gravity but my intuition and the positive spin we explore together that creates the peaceful, un-fragmented feel of the healing dreamscape.
Phase 4: I reconfigure your memories
Photos fire up conflicting emotions or desire, simultaneously life-changing or banal. Symbolically rearranging people in one's life from new vantage points and from multiple points in time can imbue a composition with a positive spin on premonitory knowledge. Notice in Anne H's dreamscape, for example, that a painful divorce happened before the final abandonment. By sliding two separate photos together that each spouse took of the other on the same flight of steps we are reminding the family of happier times.
Phase 5: You view the first mock-up
Good feedback is essential to the process. I'll email you the first mock-up at a low resolution as soon as I start playing with the images on my computer. Upon seeing your healing dreamscape for the first time, I give you an opportunity to subtract the superfluous, or suggest what's missing. This is, after all, art for your sake. After a little more refinement, I present a second, and if necessary, third version for you to review.
This forms the basis of an estimate, and I'll invoice you at this point in order to formally start the process before refining your piece for further feedback. (Keep in mind that I work on a sliding scale, so if funds are tight, it's only a matter of finding time in my schedule for your healing dreamscape. Email me at nancy@artforyoursake.com or call me at 773-255-4677 to put your project on my calendar.)
Every one of the photomontages you see on my site is custom, but anyone can afford one. I can do big things with a small number of photos. I work on a sliding scale, and I accept installments.
Combining the first two photos costs $48, and every additional photo I work into the piece is $40, whether it's yours or mine. The beauty of this pricing model is that I don't charge a penny extra to digitally retouch, restore, color correct or colorize your photos as commercial photomontage services do. I don't charge for scanning. Shipping of your 8x10 photographic print is free as long as I can send it (with a CD of all your files) using Priority Mail. (Enlargements, photo purses, or photo sculptures, invitations and cards are sent out separately by my affiliates, and only those items have handling and shipping charges associated with them.)
Some of you may already have a fixed idea in mind of exactly how many photos you want to use. But you know what? To tell a good story, often fewer photos produce more artistic results. This is why I always recommend that we talk first before I send you a quote. (Email is really terrible for brainstorming about custom artwork!)
By all means, have a look at some typical scenarios to get a feel for pricing:
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Dreamscape Photo-Purse or Photo sculpture: (3) client photos; (1) backdrop from me, $128
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Gratitude Card: (4) photos of every family member; (1) backdrop from me, $168
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8 x 10 Healing Dreamscape print: (5) client photos; (3) images from me, $288
- 20 x 30 Healing Dreamscape poster: photomontage ($ X) plus enlargement, $130
In every case, the price is determined by the number of photos (yours or mine) that we jointly decide I'll work on, whether all of them end up in the final composition or not. In the same vein, you and I can add images (yours or mine) at any point in the process. In fact, I may suggest images for a piece, working them into a mock-up so you can see if they're your cup of tea or not. If they're not, you're under no obligation to accept them. Conversely, we may decide to drop an image that you approved of earlier on in the process because suddenly it seems to take away from the composition. In this case, you're obligated to pay for the digital work performed on that image.
It takes no time at all to run through important questions about your vision, the condition of your photos and to write up a quote, so call me at 773-255-4677 or email me at nancy@artforyoursake.com.
Payment. Once we agree on a rough estimate of images for your photomontage - and before I begin work - I'll email you an invoice with a payment button that allows you to instantly pay in full with your credit card via PayPal. Later on- should we add additional images- I'll simply invoice you again for the balance. Paying in installments is perfectly fine with me.
Rush charges. Rush charges are always 10% of the cost of your final photomontage. Overnight charges begin at $21. Or if you have a Fed Ex number, we can pre-arrange the shipping at no cost to you.
Sending your materials. You can send your materials by:
- snail mail (on a CD, or as originals/reprints) to Nancy Gershman,
Art For Your Sake, 522 West Barry Avenue, Chicago IL 60657-5417 - digitally by email to nancy@artforyoursake.com, or
- uploaded at www.artforyoursake.com/ezupload
Deliverables. All your materials are returned to you along with an 8 x 10 print of your photomontage on premium photographic paper, plus a CD containing all scanned images and the final photomontage. These digital files are provided as my gift (word-of-mouth is my best form of advertising). Shipping via Priority Mail is included unless weight exceeds 1 lb.
Ready to start your project? Email me at nancy@artforyoursake.com or call me, 773-255-4677 so we can talk about your photos.