Artist/Gallery Relations???

[Chris Saper]

Wow, what a tale.

Although I don't have any experience with gallery representation, I know many who have.

First, I do not think that you jumped the gun by getting a lawyer. You got a good result without having to go to court.

Second, I think it would be a mistake to resume relations with the Napa gallery. You've been burned more than once - I think most psychologists will tell you that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior - and I think you should expect the owner to continue his unethical ways.

Can you speak to the owner of the Carmel galley to see if they have other locations? Or whether they can recaommend a wine contry gallery?

Good luck. I knew there was reason I had a bad feeling about galleries...

[Anthony Emmolo]

Hello Chris,

I appreciate your thoughts. I can also see you are correct. The desire to relive the days of many sales would have brought me back to that gallery (with regrets I assume.)

It is a difficulty that we have to deal with in this business, but still I cannot think of a better lifestyle. Ours is a life of growth in an area we love. It is not the life of eight hours a day and then try not to think of the office until the next morning. When we do have to work another job for a living, hopefully it is part-time and not a competition for our energies that can go into our art.

The difficulties that we have to put up with are the food for further growth if we use those difficulties correctly. By this I mean that an artist who can learn to accept the pains in life, and those pains will come, and still consistently do his or her art, becomes an artist of higher spiritual being than that same artist would be not given the pains to transform. This is true whether or not the person's studio skills actually grow. It is also the motivating force for me.

Let us all learn to take the pains as they will happen in every field, and use them toward our own growth. And then we will realize how lucky we are to be artists living and growing through something we love.

Anthony