News from Earth and Fire -- July 16, 2008
I promise I didn't intend this
Since the first day I envisioned the gallery, I was determined to treat my artists and my customers absolutely fairly. Several times there have been errors on artist invoices that favored the gallery (sometimes by more than $100). I have always noted the error and paid the correct amount. When problems have come up after a sale, I have done the best I can to make it right.
It's just the right thing to do and that's how I wanted to do business.
I told you that the last of the pots from Byron Temple's estate were online. I counted them down and increased the incentive every week. I didn't want to play games with you about this. I didn't want to tease and tantalize. I told you when I started this process that if you had a tipping point in mind for one of the pots, to just go ahead and give me a call and make a reasonable offer. My goal was to close out this last selection of pots as quickly as I could, while respecting their uniqueness and value.
On June 21, I made this entry in my Today at the Gallery notes:
I am ashamed to admit there were actually 6 pots that I hadn't put up on the website yet. I guess when there were more of them here, it was a bigger job to sort them out. But they're all up there now. This is the end -- there ain't no mo' tucked away anywhere. I promise.
Trust me that when I wrote that, I really believed it.
Yesterday, I mailed out 2 of the last 3 of them that were on the website, and I updated the website to say that this was the FINAL POT. But somewhere way in the back of my mind -- a little voice piped up last night and said, "Ya know.. at one time you had a bunch of them in that shelving unit downstairs. You really need to check that tomorrow." I also wanted to reconcile the handwritten inventory list that the executor and I made when the pots came in almost 2 years ago, against my Quickbooks accounting for when the pots had sold (something I should have been doing all along!)
When I came in this morning, I checked the shelving unit.
Imagine my surprise (and horror that I was going to have to explain this to you all!!) and please, please PLEASE accept this as GOOD NEWS!!!!!
There are 10 more.
In my defense, I offer a picture of my desk:
Talk about "I'm ashamed"
Oh, the humanity!
I am not an organized person. See that 12 square inch portion of desk you can see in the middle? That's essentially the size of my desk now. I pay my bills in that space. I eat my lunch in that space. I don't like it, but when I have put my head down and actually cleaned OFF my desk -- in a couple of days' time, it's right back. The odd thing is that it doesn't seem to ever get any WORSE than this. I reach a sort of state of equilibrium with it all and this is just "what is". I've learned to accept it.
I do know when things are really important -- like making backup copies of my computer files and making sure my bills get paid on time and there is always money in the account to cover the checks. And I've always known exactly where that handwritten inventory sheet was -- I never lost that. Hey.. I could reconcile it with Quickbooks any time, right? No rush.
OK so.. Mea Culpa here.
I have now reconciled the inventory sheet with Quickbooks and the reality of this last little stash that I discovered, and this is what I have. In trying to come up with the right thing to do about the incentive, which had been at 70% for that "last" pot... I don't think it's right to put it back to 10%, and I don't think it's right to leave it at 70%. So I threw a dart, and I have set it at 30% for the remainder of this week, and we'll start in again with the increase of 10% every Tuesday for this last round. (And again, if you want to make a reasonable offer on any of them, you can do that at any time.)
I hope that's the right thing to do.
Here are the pots
Have a good week.
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