What’s a day in the gallery like?

For weeks I’ve been meaning to write about your average day here at the Ian Russell Gallery.  I say here because that’s where I am right now.  Just wrapping up a busy day, and it seems like I’ve got a little time to blog!

Fortunately Ian’s here for the afternoon so I can step back from the front for a few!

This morning I arrived a little before 9 p.m.  Getting everything ready for the day and settling in to the thought of being at work.  I’ve always been that way….early in, prepping for what’s to come, etc.

Moments after I arrived at the gallery I had my first call of the day.  A new client calling to see about coming in to do some new photo prints.  Excellent way to start the day.

The client showed up only minutes after the call.  He’d already been in route when he called.  We loaded his photos up, viewed them, did some minor retouching and setup.  Finally 5 prints were selected for reproduction on canvas.  Gallery wraps one and all.

So, the first order of business for the day was loading up the 24″ wide roll of Chromata Canvas to do 4 out of 5 prints.  What did I create today?

• 1 24×32″ gallery wrap.  With borders for stretching that one was 29 x 37″.
• 3 18×24 wraps.  Borders included made them 23 x 29″.
• 1 16 x 24″ wrap.  Borders included made that one 21 x 29″

After the client left several shoppers rolled through the gallery.  A few good sales, lots of information about the gallery and the artists, and the printer running in the background.

Only a few days ago Ian & I cleared out the back corner near the print room.  Boxes, canvas, tubs of veneer, and other what nots.  Unfortunately, clutter has returned.  We’re rearraging a few things over the next week, and rehanging several of the larger pieces.  So, the clean corner of our universe now hosts some clutter once more.  Ah well, it happens.

By mid-day I’d finished up with my new client’s prints.  They look good, but they’re not done.  I’ve got to mix up some Glamour II semi-gloss and “fix” the canvas.  5 prints should take me about an hour to finish up.  They’ll need to dry for several hours over night, and then they’ll be rolled up.  If I had all the stretcher bars in stock I could have them wrapped tomorrow.  Sorry to say that several of the bars he needs aren’t ones I keep in stock.

So, that meant an order to my stretcher bar wholesaler.  I’ll see the bars next Monday, and I’ll have the gallery wraps completed on Tuesday.  If the client becomes a regular I’ll make sure to stock some bars for his custom sized prints going forward.

Several more customers have rolled through this afternoon including two more print clients who are new to me.  We’ve scheduled times to sit down with their images and figure out what would work best.  One pastel artist, and one oil painter.  All good stuff.

Before I head home tonight I’ll be cleaning up in the print room once again.  Invoice copies piling up on my desk, little note cards with bar sizes, a few calculations for taxes, etc.  Oh yes, sales tax calculations.  How much fun.  Time to pay you know!  :)

Glad to say it was a pretty normal day.  More print clients, more traffic through the store (January is supposed to be slow, but I don’t see it), and still a good deal of fun.

Before I sign off here, I have one last note about the “business” side of things, and this is in all seriousness.

All of my images displayed online are covered under the Creative Commons Licensing and Copyright.  Each image you see on my blog has my copyright watermark on it for a reason.  I used to leave the copyright off, but I ran into problems with my images being used without credit to me, images being edited, etc.  That occurred on the old blog and I made an announcement about it.  I do not mind people using an image so long as they link back to this site with appropriate credit.  I do mind extremely when my images are edited, the copyright removed, etc.

I say this because I’ve become aware of several recent edits of my images hitting the net.  No attribution, I’m strictly against edits of my images without permission, etc.  This use of my material needs to stop now.  The last time it happened the issue was resolved and the offending party paid for their usage.

Just to be clear on CC work, a link is included below.  Thanks for your attention to this notice.  It’s always been part of this blog, but I thought I’d point it out again.  I certainly hope the current images of mine out there that have been edited will be taken down, and the other images used link back to this site soon…….

The Airstream Chronicles Continued by http://blog.richcharpentier.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at blog.richcharpentier.com.