Well, that's that then

Merry Christmas to one and all. It is about 3.50 on Christmas Eve and I am about to shut up the studio and gallery for a few days. It has been an odd couple of weeks, with too much ice and snow diminishing the usual slow but welcome trickle of shoppers browsing for presents. I mustn't complain because those that did make it have chosen very nice pieces of my work (and Kate's) to give to their friends and relatives. I have been busily glazing porcelain during the final 2 weeks and have some really good work to display into the spring. I hope this doesn't make me too lazy in January- I know I have a bit more of the studio to decorate as well as repainting the areas where snow meltwater has seeped in, spoiling the recent redecoration. I have no idea if all the parcels I sent to customers arrived in time- some areas were said to be having serious delays. I hope that all is well and recipients love their gifts.

The curious world of Sale-Or-Return

I work in a strange field where it is customary for the seller of my work to have no financial commitment or risk. Artists and craft makers are very frequently only able to get their work accepted by galleries and craft retail shops on the basis of Sale-Or-Return i.e I have to pay to send by post or courier, or personally deliver a batch of my work to a retailer, and that retailer then shows the work to their public for a period of maybe 3 months. I have no idea if the work is all on show, or if some or all is away in storage. The arrangement is usuall that unsold work will be returned after the conclusion of the agrred period, but in practice this usually slips until I put in a request to have unsold items returned.
Most of these galleries take the same 50% + VAT of the sale price as the ones who buy the work in. There is little room for negotiation and if I want my work on display in as many places as possible, then that is the way it is.
I would love to know what other areas of trade have a similar system in place, so please let me know.

I can have a small group of pots in a gallery that would be worth say £300, sitting idle and this can be replicated by may 10 galleries at once- representing quite a large value.
However it is certainly not all doom and gloom- I am very happy and grateful to recieve cheques in the post for sales, and there is a great benefit to having the work doing it's job for me way beyond the local public who visit Old Leigh Studios where I make the pottery. If it was all here with me, it would possibly be doing  less good.

I hope this comes over as a short informative item rather than a rant, as this is the spirit in which it is intended.

Recent exhibitions

I went to the final day of the London College of Communication Photography MA show at Elephant & Castle to see the work by my friend Kelly Hill http://www.kellyhill.co.uk/   

Her work involves taking photos at night through windows of young people engaged in their everyday activities/games, and have a peculiar quality of silence and intimacy. Take a look on
www.map10.co.uk
There was plenty of other interesting work, but the nature of these shows is to only allow a fraction of the work to be exhibited. Also, MA's are about minutely investigating motives, actions, sources and theorising to death (my opinion only)which I think gets in the way of a damn good idea. The image is the important thing surely...the clue is in the term 'visual arts'