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A woman refused to pay her artist friend after she “sexualized” her in the wedding portrait she commissioned.
In a post shared to the Am I the A**hole forum on Reddit, a married woman wrote that she asked her painter friend if she could paint a custom wedding portrait for her and her husband’s upcoming anniversary. Knowing her friend’s work, the bride wasn’t expecting anything but beautiful.
“I thought it would be a good one year anniversary gift,” the woman explained. “I have seen her work and she can do realist painting of people.”
The artist agreed to a $700 fee, with the woman giving her a $300 deposit as well as a few photos for reference. But when the woman received the final product, she was dismayed to find that the artist had noticeably altered parts of her body to look more sexy.
“She showed me the painting yesterday, my husband looked great but I looked completely different,” she wrote. “In short she sexualized me and I find it so gross.”
She noted that the artist painted her with much larger breasts, and changed the dress so that it was a lot more skin-bearing, even going so far as to add a split to her dress that wasn’t there before.
“My wedding dress is showing much more skin,” the woman continued. “She even added a split to my dress to show off more leg. I don’t look like that in any of my photos I gave her. I find it really gross.”
Because of the situation, the woman told her artist friend that she would not pay her for her work unless she fixed the painting, leading to a huge argument between them. The artist said she thought the woman was a “jerk” for not paying her, but the woman stood her ground and argued that the artist was at fault for painting her in an overtly sexualized manner.
“It is going around with my friends, some think I am being petty and others are standing by me,” she concluded.
In the comment section, many people sided with the woman, saying that the artist should have consulted with her and shown her preliminary sketches before taking liberties with the painting.
“Your friend did not show you sketches or progress photos? That is a bit weird,” one person noted. To which the woman responded, “She just told me she was going off the one picture I gave her.”
“Is your friend a professional artist, or just someone who is skilled at painting?” another chimed in. “Not showing you sketches or progress photos is total amateur hour [in my opinion].”
“As an artist, I can tell you that unless that person specifically says they want it to be a surprise, you always always show a rough draft first,” someone else noted, saying that the friend was likely an amateur. “Adding things like a slit and really big changes is just at that point a creative liberty so I feel like she just did something that makes no sense and should own up to it.”
