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gallery contract

updated wed 30 apr 97

 

John McCain on thu 17 apr 97

Greg,

Congratulations on having your work accepted by a gallery! We have had
our pottery in a couple of galleries, one a very pleasant experience and
the other a real pain. The difference was the character of the owners.
We had contracts at both galleries.

Most galleries have their own contract already drafted. If your does
not, we have several suggestions.

1. Include a clear statement that the work remains your property. We
have seen galleries (and craft malls) go belly up and the art work
claimed by the creditors.

2. Include something to the effect that you set the price for a work or
at least you must be consulted. The bad gallery changed our price,
marking up some items to about four times our wholesale price without
our knowledge (we use keystone pricing, twice the wholesale price for
retail). We pulled our pottery our of the bad gallery and that is when
we discovered the price difference. We would have only received our
wholesale price.

3. Make sure that the contract calls for a complete inventory to be
maintained by the gallery. Each sale should be reported to you in
sufficient detail so that you can identify the pieces sold. Maintain
your own inventory.

Keep in frequent contact with the gallery. We found that the owner of
our bad gallery had used a teapot for a year at her home then exchanged
it for another. She had not even bothered to clean the tea stains from
the returned pot before placing it out for sale! Mind you, this is the
largest art gallery in Houston.

Rotate your inventory if things are not selling as well as you would
like.

Sincerely,
John and Judy McCain
Palo Pinto Pottery
mccain@our-town.com

D. Rush Tucker on sun 20 apr 97

In a message dated 97-04-18 11:28:57 EDT, you write:

<< we use keystone pricing >>

what is keystone pricing????isn't that a town in kansas?

-rush