I found out that Tim, who prints my photos, got his new gicleé machine last fall, so I took an order to him, just meaning to replace some of the pictures that I had sold at last spring's shows. Since his old machine had broken down last spring, he had amassed quite a bit of backlog, so he couldn't get to mine for a while (Robin, his #1, had said she hoped that I didn't need them before Christmas. I assured her not.) After Christmas, I checked with them periodically to see if he'd gotten to mine yet.
A few weeks ago, Robin told me he had questions. Among other things, one of the pics was not stored on his computer, and he wasn't sure what I wanted to do about that. But by that time, I was running short on time, and I decided that I would just place the order for my five new pics, and one older one that had sold out last year.
To simplify things (I thought), the new pics all had file names with the title and the width of the picture: i.e. "Land Line 10"wide." That way, he could just look at the title and set the measurements in the computer and press print. Those were the instructions I gave Robin, and those are the instructions she wrote down. And that's where the trouble began.
Now, the old pics were not designated thusly. When I placed the original order for "Skyline Signature," I was standing there with Tim at the computer as he followed my verbal instructions and typed in 15"x whatever", and I assumed that the old measurements were still in his computer. They probably were. But the old pic order got conflated with the new pic instructions and...
Tim says to Robin, "Is this really the size he wants?"
Robin says to Tim, "Yeah, that's what he said."So Tim prints the picture according to the title on the file, which says "Ratio 1.25 32x40."
Twice.That title actually had nothing to do with the gicleé prints. When the photo was originally taken, my intent was to paint this picture, and 32x40 was to be the size of the painting. Then my friend Loggan made the astute observation that I would never get around to it, and then I discovered Tim,and well, the rest is history.
I got the call today that the pictures were ready. When I came in, there was "Skyline Signature," two of them, the size of a full sheet of matboard. Omigosh, they were beautiful. It wasn't what I meant to order, and he is reprinting in the size I need, but I want the big ones so bad.
But here's the problem. Gicleé is a relatively expensive printing process, which makes the prints expensive for the art consumer to buy. When I got home, I figured out that the retail price on these would be $470 unframed! Do I actually have a market for that? And I'm down one show this year, since the Kathy's Market On The Paseo show had to be cancelled for this year. The Pride show is not a moneyed show, and the only other show coming up that I've been involved with is the Pancakes and Booze show in September. It's not practical to spend the money on them this year.
But I want them.
I want them so bad.
The other prints were mostly fine (although, when I got home I realized that I hadn't specified the 1" borders, which is going to cause some framing problems -- again, don't assume someone will remember something you told them two years ago,) so I packed them up to take home, still wistfully looking at the giant ones. I told Tim, "Don't destroy these, because I know I'm going to talk myself into getting them." I don't know when, but it's going to happen.
Probably.
