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ART OF STAINED GLASS Attracting Commissions If your work is professional, and you are aggressive enough, you will work. You will get inquiries at craft fairs for small projects. Have a business card ready, and a website where your portofolio is displayed. For those that think large, leave your business card with local home renovation experts that may suggest stained glass to their clients, especially if you allow them to collect 10% of your fee, or if you give them a price, and they quote to their client with whatever markup they think they can get away with. Leave your business card with local architects. They may be interested in incorporating stained glass in some projects. Window and door specialists may be interested if you are able to make structurally sound panels in thermopanes. The have the occasional client who is not wow'ed by the standard offerings. Traditional cabinet makers may need stained glass door insets. Supply them with pricing and a portfolio, and let them propose your work to their client, for which they would be expected to take a markup. Commissioning Process Most stained glass crafters have considered the possibility of working on commission, often the result of inquiries fron friends or family, or through contacts developped at craft fairs, or with local contractors. Commissions are profitable because the work is a guaranteed sale, very much unlike the pieces you produce for your own relaxation and in your own taste - which may or may not ever sell. But sometimes, the commission piece turn into more trouble than it’s worth! Your ommissioned panel or cabinet inset will be subject to the whim of the buyer, whose budget may be limited, and whose artistic vision may be unrefined, or squarely in opposition with yours. Things like subject matter, materials, approach, can all become issues of contention between yourself and your prospective client. If you are known for a particular style that your client likes, you are already ahead in terms of mutual expectations. If your portfolio is more generic and filled with conflicting design philosophies, more discussions will be beneficial. Even if you need to discuss over several days. You need to decide whether you are a "glazier-for-hire" that will do anything even if you consider it to be in poor taste, or take the helm, and sell your artistic vision to the client, "take it or leave it." The income may matter to you more than the artistic integrity of the work that will bear your signature. It has to be one or the other; either you commit to fulfilling your clients' express needs, whatever they are, or you commit to imposing your greater knowledge of the art of stained glass to your client, knowing that you risk losing the commission altogether - the upside may be that your client will recognize, after discussion, letting it sink in, and showing your cartoon proposal to his friends, that your idea is the better one. Contract Be sure that your contract is very explicit, and signed. Specify dimensions, glass, quantity, delivery schedule, late penalties, and payment schedule. Generally, artists ask for one-half or one-third up-front before they begin work. That initial "down-payment" is yours even if the client backs out later into the project. It covers for time spent in preparation or ordering materials that may not easily find an alternative useage. This downpayment is also known as the "kill fee." 
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