sharon miranda on sat 10 apr 04
Dear Clayarters: I'm wondering what you would have done......
I have had a (tenuous) relationship with one of the best galleries in
my fair city for several years now. They've sold my pots, but they
never seem to know who I am and I've always had to ask for the
check.....Recently, I called and asked if I could bring in more stuff.
The new gallery manager said, please just come in and pick up your pots
and take them home. Ok, I get there, and there's only one pot left. So
they write me out a check (for the wrong amount, btw), and the manager
asks "did you bring any new pots?".
Well, in fact, I did have some with me. She ended up with 5 more pots
in the store (after declaring that my new gold glaze looked like "snot"
to her....)
I put up with this and behaved. But yesterday, when I dropped in the
gallery, (a month later), I found only 1 pot displayed- on a shelf
about 10 feet up. Asked about the others, and the employee tells me,
oh, they're all in the back room.
This is, as I said, a gallery with some classy pottery (and other
stuff), I always thought it'd be an honor to be there.
I nearly hissed at the employee and she got the manager who explained,
Oh we're waiting for the garden show, we'll put the pots out then.
I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong, here. THEY are listed on my web
site, I'm getting phone calls from customers and I'm sending them to
this gallery, and I can't seem to get them to support my work. Or to
display it, for that matter.
sheesh. If you have any ideas about how to get galleries to be more
supportive, I'd like to hear them.
thanks,
Sharon
Craig Martell on sun 11 apr 04
Bill sez:
>If the gallery buys other work wholesale, they own it and that work will
>get priority display space.
Hi:
I've heard this idea several times on Clayart. My comment to the above is:
"not always". I am the joint owner of a gallery in Oregon and we show a
lot of clay and glass. We don't give the work we have purchased preference
over the consigned stuff. What you're looking at is X amount of bucks per
square foot of retail space and all sales whether consignment or wholesale,
make money. We also know that there's a wide range of customers with
differing tastes and a lot of them may be drawn to work that we don't own
and we are sure as hell not going to try and dissuade them from getting
exactly what they want. All of the work we have is there because we like
the quality and genre of work and we are glad to show it all and sell all
of it regardless of the financial agreement with the makers.
just my point of view, Craig Martell Hopewell, Oregon
william schran on sun 11 apr 04
Sharon wrote:>I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong, here. THEY are
listed on my web
site, I'm getting phone calls from customers and I'm sending them to
this gallery, and I can't seem to get them to support my work. Or to
display it, for that matter.<
You didn't say if your work is on consignment (I assume so because
you said they wrote you a check for pots that sold) or if the
gallery purchases your work wholesale. If the gallery buys other work
wholesale, they own it and that work will get priority display space.
Your work that's on consignment (again I'm assuming this), still
belongs to you so the gallery really doesn't have much "invested" in
it, so unless your work sells well and there is a demand for it, I'm
not surprised that it might not be on display.
Do you have a written contract with the gallery about your work? This
is a necessity to protect yourself.
You are the one to decide whether it's worth your time and
aggravation to remain with this gallery.
Bill
Jeremy McLeod on sun 11 apr 04
On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 23:24:07 -0400, sharon miranda
wrote:
>Dear Clayarters: I'm wondering what you would have done......
>I have had a (tenuous) relationship with one of the best galleries in
>my fair city for several years now. They've sold my pots, but they
>never seem to know who I am and I've always had to ask for the
>check.....
What would I have done? Unless there's no other venue on the
face of the planet in which to sell you pots, I would have
fired that gallery a lonnnnnnnng time ago. Rude, denegrating,
and irresponsible in displaying and paying are not attributes
of "the best galleries" anywhere in my book. But then I tend
to have criteria for "best" that are a bit different than
what would seem to be cultural norms.
Peace!
Jeremy McLeod
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