If I change a painting to suit a client — if I start a painting with the clients color choices or do anything that is different from what I would naturally do for, dare I say it, money — does it make me less of an artist?

I wonder if it was Money or Matisse that changed something to go with a specific room.

I have done all these things just to make a sale. I am not really at peace with what I did. Now I would not do it. Looking at my work as though it is important if only for the fact that I am the only one that can do it, I believe I should be true to what my instincts first told me. I want every artist to be themselves all the time. I expect them to tell me what is what not the other way around. Nobody else can be me and nobody can be you. Our uniqueness makes us important. The biggest picture of all is that we did not make ourselves so Someone must have liked the way He made us. As Anne Flood told me once  “I never stress over whether a painting takes 10 minutes or 10 years to sell. There is a person out there just for this painting.”