Learning to say No

I think this is one of the hardest things to resolve for ANYBODY, let alone an artist or craftsman. It's a tough deal.

For me there has always been a strong personal component to the issue. I sell things directly to individuals, I create something with my hands and put it directly in the customer's hands, and this is a very intimate transaction at times. And I LIKE my customers, I become at least "friendly" with them, if not outright friends. So it's very hard for me to say "no" to something at times.

It's become something that I've decided to take on and work on very seriously though, because it's something I need to be able to do, both for myself, and prospective patrons. It's about protecting myself, but also about the best interests of the customers also.

In the past I've been asked, and maybe pressured a little, to occasionally add something or change some design of a project that I knew were likely not good changes.
But it's what the customer wanted, and they were paying, so I went with it. In a couple of cases in particular, it really came back to bite me, and the customers also. In one example, I added a feature to a sword, that I explained wasn't really the way "it should be", but the customer was on a budget, and was trying to get a little more "bang for the buck". Which I can understand, completely. But later on, this sword showed up on the internet being "reviewed" by another person, who was more expierienced and knowledgeable than the customer, and this person wasn't very kind in the review, especially with regards to the features added I mentioned.
And, unfortunately, he was right really.
But what was not mentioned, is that these changes were not of my doing or design, that they were requested by the customer, and I had merely attempted to provide the customer what he had asked for.
The result was that my work became in question for some time, I lost business, and the customer also ended up feeling "less than" because now he had a sword that had problems.

In another instance, again from a great deal of pressure from a customer, I made a sword pretty much entirely to his design, and where there were very serious concerns, I raised them very clearly, but, I was younger, he was "more knowledgeable", and I ended up just doing it the way he wanted. At a Western Martial Arts seminar perhaps a year later, the sword was examined by a number of respected practicioners, who found some flaws in the design and it's structure. And again, this went out far and wide as being an issue with my abilities, without mention of the fact it wasn't really "my" sword, it was somebody else's vision of a sword that I had merely made for them.

These things, I guess they sound somewhat petty and tied with ego. And they are to an extent. But these events also did a great deal of damage to my business also, and like any other business, you have to make an effort to avoid issues like this, it can do a great deal of harm that can take a long time to remedy.

So, now, I have to resign myself to the fact that I must work harder at saying "no" when it's appropriate to do so, both for myself, and the customer. I may lose one job or commission, but if I give in and do something I know I shouldn't, I may lose ten.
Outside all of the personal reasons I perform this craft, and love it, I still have to pay a mortgage and bills like everybody else. This is hard to remember sometimes.

There's another part of it that stands out to me. I have to stop taking on work I know I may not enjoy doing. When a craftsman is doing something that he doesn't like, I don't think he is going to do his best work. There are parts about any of it I don't really dig that much of course; I don't like the grinding very much, because of the noise and dust, but that's different in a way, it's a nessecary evil and I simply deal with that, that doesn't really have anything to do with the project, it's just a means to an end. But making something I don't really want to make, just for the money, that just doesn't do me any good, nor does it provide a customer with the best work I can produce, so again, in the end, It's just not doing anything positive for me when I look at the big picture.

I love making beautiful and useful things for people, to a large extent it's what drives me. But to preserve that, then "no" is a word that I need to embrace and make use of, when i know there is a need.