Creative Advent 2008: Basia Christ

The best advice I ever received was from a client lost. Allow me to explain the circumstances.

When I first began freelancing many years ago, I was desperate to earn money because I was a single mom that received no child support. I would take jobs many others turned down because of the short, sometimes even impossible, deadlines. One particular illustration called for me to work all weekend to create an airbrushed background for the center spread of a magazine (this was before computers and Photoshop, of course).

Don’t Take a Job You Can’t Deliver

The Art Director of a downtown Chicago agency, for whom I’ve worked with before, needed the 18x20” artwork by 8 a.m. Monday morning. I met with him on Friday morning in downtown Chicago and bid on the job.

I had to supply a pencil layout Friday afternoon to see if they would award the project to me (this was before pdf files and faxes so I had to drive back to the suburbs and drive back to downtown Chicago with the layout)…they did.

This meant I had to work all weekend, first finding appropriate desert photos, cutting masks, matching paints with the design of the publication, and, of course, doing the airbrushing. It turned into my lost weekend as my children, 6, 7 and 8, were told constantly, “Mommy’s busy. Handle it.” I only left my studio to feed and check on them periodically to make sure there was no blood.

Picture this. It’s 2 a.m. Monday morning after working all weekend. All I had to do was the final pass at the bottom with the last color, a light beige loaded in the airbrush. I was thrilled I was going to make the deadline and earn enough money to feed us for the next week. I was just inches from the border when my airbrush “spattered remnants of the previous color, a dark sienna. Obviously, I hadn’t cleaned the air brush properly.

I sat there looking at my ruined artwork and knew there was no time to redo it and make the deadline.

I called the agency at 8 a.m. and told the Art Director. And the advice he gave that I never forgot? “Don’t take a job if you can’t deliver!” I never got any work from the agency again; however, I never took a job again that had an impossible deadline!

Guest Author Bio

Basia Christ is an Orange County, California resident, originally from Chicago, president of Marketive and author of Women Rising Now: the Heroine’s Journey through the Dark Night. She has previously written for today’s Woman, Beach Cities Style and Empowering Women magazines and the OC Register about women’s rights and triumphs. She is a CASA (court-appointed special advocate) and co-Chair for Sophia 2010, an international women’s conference in Sofia, Bulgaria occurring during May 2010. Basia is also available for presentations on gender equality. If you have questions or comments, please call 949-690-1257.