Often I wonder what kind of artist I would have been without customers.  I get a lot of ideas from customers and I am inspired by their enthusiasm.  For example, I greatly enjoyed painting King Ludwig’s castle in Bavaria, but I never would have painted it for myself.  In Florence, someone would stop me and ask “When are you going to paint my Venice. ”  So I would go to Venice, to the bridge of Academia and paint the canals and the church, and that would bring me great satisfaction.  What beauty, what inspiration….What joy and all because a customer wanted a painting.  My professor, Silvio Loffredo, used to say, “If you wait too long for the inspiration it may never come.  You start and then it may come.”  I say, you are an artist as long as you create art.   If it was up to me, I may find myself waiting for inspiration.   I enjoy painting for myself, but I also have to thank my customers for helping guide my art and inspiring me with their ideas.