See also Second Commission by Michael

I had salvaged from a cafe's copy of Sports Illustrated a bumper sticker that read "I (heart)", with the rest being blank so that the owner of the bumper sticker could finish the sentence.

I thought about lots of different things I could write into that blank space. I didn't want it to be anything common, like "My Horse" or "My Dog" or "Biking" or whatever. I wanted it to make people think. I actually thought that I might just write in "Thinking".

Our friend Michael makes a living (sort of!) by selling works featuring Japanese and Chinese characters from various time periods. His work is very good, and I had already purchased a stack of greeting cards featuring his calligraphy. I thought about making the bumper sticker even more interesting by having him pen the character for "Thinking".

As I spoke with him about it at his booth in the Artisan's Market, I realized that I could probably fit more than one character on the bumper sticker, and that it would even make sense to affix the sticker to my car vertically rather than horizontally. He thought through the process and explained that he'd have to apply some type of fixative in order to protect the characters from the elements.

Meanwhile, some "real" customers stopped by his booth, and I stepped back so that they could look at Michael's artwork without me being in the way. As I waited for Michael to be finished with the customers, I perused his other works. He had recently introduced a new style of work which featured characters penned in a more abstract style and which used a different sort of paper.

In the house where I grew up and in one or the other of my parents' business offices, there had been several works of modern art. At least one of them was a Picasso. Perhaps they had all been Picassos. I had always loved these. As I stood there turning these images over in my head, I began to realize that these pieces had helped to form aesthetic sensibility.

The new style of calligraphy on the new paper, framed, cost more than what Michael was going to charge me for the bumper sticker work. Yet I liked the new style so much, I began to desire a piece for myself. It didn't take long for the mental barrier of the price difference to melt away. It quickly became clear that, for only a relatively small amount of additional money, I could have a first-rate piece of artwork in my home.

I had previously thought that at some point I would purchase one of Michael's smaller and less-expensive pieces. But now I had been what I later called "converted" - I had seen the beauty of the work and realized that skimping on price would keep me from having the most beautiful work he could produce.

When the customers were gone, I told Michael that I'd changed my mind and wanted a larger piece. I'd already decided that I wanted the character to be "Wisdom". It wasn't until a subsequent show that Michael sketched for me four possible versions of "Wisdom". Each had a slightly different shade of meaning, and each looked different.

By happy coincidence, the meaning I desired and the character which I found to be most pleasing were one and the same. I ordered the commission, confident that it would be money well-spent.

At one of our next "church" gatherings, Michael presented me with the finished piece. I'd been a little nervous that I had not been able to see ahead of time what the piece would look like. The piece I'd seen in his booth was "Dragon" and I loved it. I'd only seen very small replicas of the character I'd ordered, and they were not as abstract as my piece would be. Howeverk, when Michael unveiled my piece, I loved it every bit as much as I'd loved "Dragon".

The type of wisdom I'd chose to display in my home was "old age wisdom". This is a type of wisdom I had always hoped to acquire some day, and to have this piece in my home would be a reminder of a goal to aspire to. I think I have a pretty good chance at achieving this goal. I work very hard to learn from my mistakes and to improve myself when I can.