Here I am again with someone else's art. I also bought this one off of Etsy. I adore real photos of sky lanterns although I have never seen a lantern release myself.
While net shopping, I came across this fun painting by Grace Mady. I immediately loved the lanterns. They really drew me in.
I took a huge gamble (for me that is) because no one else had bought any of her paintings from her Etsy shop. Normally, I want to see some happy customer reviews, but this time there were none. I didn't jump on it instantly. I had to roll it around in my head for a while. Did I take a chance and be the first?.... or no.
As you can see, in the end, I chose to gamble. I always pay these with my PayPal, so I really can't totally loose the money if things go sideways, but still, having to deal with it if things go wrong is really not fun.
She had multiple photos of the painting there, but very little extra description. I don't know how many times I looked through them before I made my decision. After it got here and I unpackaged it, I found a surprise I had not noticed in the photos. At first I was like "What tha???".... but as I went back to re-look at the photos, I could see it, but I had not been looking for any such thing and my eyes simply did not catch it.
Poking out of the bottom of the lantern that the woman has in her hands was a tiny, very slim light bulb ! You can see it clearly here, but there had not been any photos from the side like this.
The bulb had been poked through a tiny hole that had been made in the painting.
😮
What a terrible thing to do to a perfectly good painting !
It had been rigged from the back with the tiny battery operated light. If you liked it that way, it was neat in that it has an on/off button, but flawed in the execution (not even counting the hole in the painting)... in that the battery was mounted on one corner, making it impossible to hang it straight from the little hook that had been attached to the top.
😄
It would have needed to have been mounted in the center of the bottom for it to have worked.
Before I decided what I was going to do, I took it into my windowless bathroom, turned it on and closed the door. This is what I got. Although the light showed up well in the dark, it did not light up the lantern above it or the woman's face. Before I tried it, I had thought that if it lit up a circle around her face and most of the balloon, as if the light from the balloon was gently lighting up her face, maybe the affect would make it worth it.... but no....
I had to drink a cup of fancy hot chocolate out of a Christmas cup my Granny gave me a long time ago (even though it was WAY after Christmas) and use the "feel good" artsy spoon my niece gave me to stir it, while I pondered my odd painting situation.
Since in her post, some photos had the light on, I couldn't really say it was not as presented, but the description didn't mention it and there was no photo of the back. I had emailed her before I bought it to make sure the sides had been painted. Believe it or not, some folks don't paint the sides of the framed canvases, which I don't like the looks of when they hang on the wall. She assured me they were painted. I had opportunity to ask anything I wanted, but again, my eyes were not looking for it.
After having time to mull it over, I decided that there was no intentional deception, so I was not mad with the artist about it. I was still appalled that a hole had been made in the painting though. I thought the light made it cheesy and was in poor taste. LOL !! Call me a snob if you will, but in the world according to ME, there should never be holes in good paintings.
(maybe so if it was a print and was sold for $9.99 at Walmart)
So, I ever so carefully worked the tiny light out of the tiny hole and took the rest of the battery contraption off of the back. After rubbing my finger lightly over the back of the slit, it somewhat filled in and if you didn't know it before, you would never see it.
At some point I will do a gentle repair from the back to make sure it never opens up or gets larger and it will be ok, with the exception of buying new art with a hole in it!! It was a bit hard for me to get mentally past that.
Since I decided there was no intended deception, I did not give any bad review or try to send it back. I also message the artist to kindly suggest that if she has any surprises like that on any of the other paintings, that she might consider showing a photo of the back and mentioning it in the description to help keep there from being surprises going forward. She was very kind on her response and thanked me for suggesting it.
I still like the painting. It makes me want to paint something with some lanterns in it, but there won't be any people I'm thinking, unless they are just shadow figures, otherwise it may look like aliens are releasing balloons into the sky.
😆
I've been having a pleasant day today on my Vaca Wednesday. I bought a new computer that came yesterday, sat it up during my lunch time and last night worked to transfer the things I want to keep from the old computer to one of my external hard drives and then onto the new one. Even if you would rather not have thought you needed to buy another computer, it is quite exciting to have a new one and play on it to figure out the differences from the one before. This one has windows 11 and the last on had windows 10. I don't always love change, but I try to go along and not complain too much and reveal I am a dinosaur....LOL !!! RRROOOOWWWRRRRrrrrrrr....
Hope you all are doing well and that your hearts are happy.
