Commissions: A Celebration of Place
I welcome commissions as they give me an opportunity to work with a person, they offer me an invitation to discover a new place and they often present me with a new artistic challenge. Much of my best work has been done on commission.
The process of requesting a commission usually flows as follows. You invite me to a place and we meet there and discuss the qualities that you most value about its particular character. I make a series of sketches and take reference photos to create a basic design. This may take awhile depending on weather and light conditions. We discuss the sketches and choose the one you like the best. Together we agree on the size of the final work and its price. You give me a deposit to cover my basic expenses and then I do my best to make a masterpiece. When it's complete, I send you a photo for your approval and payment. I then bring it to you or send it in a crate through U.P.S. Finally, if you live nearby; I return in a year and put on a final varnish at no extra cost.
This arrangement has worked very well. I have had very happy clients who have allowed their comments to be published.
What Peter's clients are saying about his Commissioned works of art
“I asked Peter to try to capture the scene we look through our living room window. The view of the south end of Salt Spring Island and Satellite Channel has provided us with much enjoyment for almost thirty years that we have lived in the house we built at Cherry Point.
Peter employed his remarkable skill as an artist not only to create a beautiful work of art but to enhance the vista with recommendations about scale, colour, texture, light and detail that are the tools of his trade.
The result “Satellite Channel From Cherry Point is a masterpiece…a twenty first century work that E.J. Hughes would be proud of.”
"Having never before commissioned a piece of art, I naively assumed that the artist would simply take license to do what he wished with the subject at hand. What an unanticipated gift, then, to be engaged by Peter in a deep and fascinating conversation about art and meaning, history and spirituality, colour, form and perspective (in its many meanings)!
The end result has been not only an exquisite painting which elicits appreciation from all who encounter it, but a personal object of contemplation which continues to grant me new insights at each viewing."
"Since 1991 Peter Spohn has painted two landscapes for me of an island in Howe Sound. That I have commissioned Peter twice tells the story...the paintings are magnificent."