For those of you looking for the 'A horrible situation...' blog post (Wednesday 29th June 2011), you can't see it at the moment but it's still here, comments and all. I've taken it down temporarily, but I certainly haven't deleted it. It will be back in due course.
And with that, I wish you a very good night! I'm off to bed. See you soon. x
Edit: I wanted to thank all of you - gallery owners, buyers of my work, friends and fellow artists, for your comments and support, both on the blog and via twitter too. I would like to make it clear that despite repeated requests to do so, I will not be naming the gallery in question because I feel it's incredibly unprofessional to do so. This wasn't about getting revenge for bad treatment of my work, the idea was to share a difficult situation I'd had to deal with, to alert people that this type of thing does happen and to be very careful. There have been buyers who have bought my work from other galleries and had it shipped to them, and they've contacted me to tell me how well it was packaged! So please don't think that all galleries behave in the same way as the one in the blog post. This is precisely why I won't be exhibiting with the gallery in question any more, because I want to be sure (for my buyers and myself) that my work is taken care of.
Hi Natasha, I was really interested to read your post and really saddened to hear of your experiences with the gallery. There really is no excuse for bad packaging and I think it would be detrimental to you as an Artist if your customers were to receive work in this condition. Personally I would name the gallery and make them "pull their socks up"!
Posted by: Justin George | July 01, 2011 at 08:25 AM
I honestly think that if you name the gallery it wouldn't be for revenge but to protect other artists whose work might be damaged in future by their poor handling. BUT you must do what you feel best and most comfortable with and ABOVE ALL keep on with your fantastic work.
Posted by: Fiona | July 01, 2011 at 09:07 AM
I understand why you are not naming the gallery and I completely agree with you on this one. There is no point in creating bad blood as everyone is so inter-connected these days. If the gallery has not learned to take better care of work due to your email then yes, perhaps it will happen again but that is not your responsibility to worry about. I think every artist who sells their work has experienced some horrific situation involving damage to his/her work at some time. It is a hard knocks way of learning how better to manage one's work and career by being more stringent about contracts etc. One of the things I loved the most about your post Natty is that you said the moral of the story (paraphrasing) is that not every opportunity that presents itself turns out to be as great as it first seemed. That gave me a lot to think about. Thank you :)
Posted by: cjy | July 02, 2011 at 09:45 PM
I missed reading that particular post but I agree it's best not to name them because after all, we're all in this together and no doubt word will get back to them. They'll then be shamed into behaving better I'm sure.xx
Posted by: Jessie | July 08, 2011 at 04:19 PM