Diane Clancy's Art Blog

First an update. An ice storm prevented travel plans … so we are here. And a wonderful piece of good news!! I called the place where we had left our items on consignment for their craft fair. They had already decided to honor our reckoning of items and had put a check in the mail. I mentioned that some items were not returned the year before either … I found things missing but not until the summer. I said I understood that it was too late. He said no, no … we want to respect our artists. And he insisted on paying me for some of the items for last year!!

I had stopped counting during the summer because I was mad I had lost merchandise, but this makes me feel appreciated and values! I had brought up the merchandise loss in terms of I thought their accounting needing to be better. They had already talked about how they want to change how they work with us in the future. Because we have many similar things, like say 50 cards, next year they decided they want us to put the same item number on all 50 cards and that way they can just keep track of the numbers of items instead of individual items. I am delighted! It will make our job much easier.

If I hadn’t followed up and let them know I was disappointed in not getting credit for the missing merchandise, none of this would have happened. Let’s face it, most people want to do the right thing! So a happier ending!!

I will continue with the other craft fair tomorrow … I just wanted to share this good news with you!

By the way, you can get these and other items at my CafePress Shop. 

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: respect, accounting, craft fair, itemizing

We got started in craft fairs because Susan was photographing elders in a nursing home. She went in several times to give lectures and take some photos. The recreation department was run by a wonderful woman who loved Susan’s work. She encouraged Susan to come and be with the residents. Then she set up an opportunity for the family of the residents to hire Susan to take portraits so they would have wonderful mementos. A few people took her up on it and were delighted, but in general it seems (at least around here) there is a better market for people photographing their children and animals than photographing their elders.

Sebastian in Flowers, Digital © Diane Clancy

The recreation director wanted to make it up to Susan for spending all the time (and money) so she invited us to several craft fairs they have for residents and staff. Plus she is a gigantic fan of our work … so she wanted an easy chance to buy our work.

Susan had taken a picture of her corgi dog and I had put him in flowers and butterflies (two separate images). She was our best customer! And there was one other employee who loved our work .. so she bought 3 8 x 10″ images and framed them herself. We were delighted!!

It was a lot of work, we didn’t have an ideal location and we were competing against very inexpensive handmade pot holders, hats, scarfs and then lotion and such. It was hard selling our archival prints against the other items. People LOVED our work, would admire it … but, as Susan says, as a museum … wanting to take it home, but not wanting to buy it. More tomorrow ….

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: nursing home, craft fair, Susan, photography