"If You Don't Ask, You Don't Get"

Until this past February, I worked in a corporate setting: It was a big place, and my cubicle was on a major thoroughfare in the maze of grayness that made up the Marketing department. So I decorated that cubicle with copies of each project (home, kid, pet portraits) I'd completed. More commissions started coming in, and I plastered the outside of my cubicle with them.

Then, I heard that a group of friends were putting on a production of Amadeus at the Concord Players. I pitched that I could do a caricature of the entire cast as a gift to their director, and I proposed my fee. All they could do is say No, right? They accepted.

Back in the day, I would wait around for people to come to me. Now I get it: You set an intention. You go outside your comfort zone. And then things happen.

Here's the director of the play, proudly displaying my caricature of the 18-person cast of Amadeus.