I recently had the fun experience of learning how to ship artwork over to Paris. I had a similar experience in 2014 when I shipped a print over to Venice for the Arte Laguna Prize. However, that contest was a bit different as they didn’t give me the luxury of time that this curator has (BIG THANKS! 🙂 ). I had to get my work over there within 2-3 weeks and I thought it would’ve been more expensive to get it printed and framed there in Italy so I had it shipped and I wasn’t comfortable just blindly sending my images to print over to a country where I didn’t speak the language. Luckily for Venice, it was only one print, so it was only $300… one way… and I was able to “donate” the print to the institution. So the Romanian Institute of Humanistic Research and Culture has a bluebell print! 😀 Anyway, my work, this year was accepted into a group show by an emerging Parisian curator and she was curating a show centered around woman and ecology.

I did my initial research and went to the major companies that I usually ship artwork to UPS – FEDEX. At UPS it was about $600 for 2 framed prints one way … and Fedex was $200… which was doable, but still that was one way. I then went to the option of buying frames in Paris and shipping them to the curator before the exhibition. We decided on that, but she was nice enough to alert me that she had a second option and that was obtaining funding for the exhibition! So the $120 dollars I would’ve spent on frames that I would’ve just left there, is being funded by her organization. And by shipping my prints through one tube via USPS I was able to bring the cost down to $17 (+ customs fees eventually)!!! This is crazy. The price dropped from the initial $600 to $17 through funding and flexibility of those involved.

Also I’ve gotten some interest through my network of my european friends that they’d be interest in seeing the exhibit and some family too, so hopefully that’ll work out!

I recently left a job opportunity in close proximity to me. It was one of those opportunities that sounded really promising but when it came to do the work itself, everything changed. At least that’s how I perceived it.

I interviewed for a gallery back in June and at the beginning of September the owner contacted me after some thought and said I left an impression (great!). I came in again for a second interview and things seemed to click. However, when I started to get more involved with the position and work, I felt I was treated atrociously and constantly felt being squished and stepped on.

She didn’t respect me… or appeared not to. Micro-managed and didn’t trust me and my background to leave me alone and do the work. Proceeded to push me in a direction that was counter-intuitive than what I was taught and trained to do because she compared me to “most people she had” (and I’m not). When I was working on a graphic design project that I knew very well how to do she almost forced me to do a way (a very inefficient way…) to do the brochure and had a fit whenever I tried to do it “my” way. Those who’ve hired me in the past respected me enough to leave me alone after the first couple of days to do the work alone and then came back to check-in. That wasn’t happening here.

Whenever I tried to fight back, she threw it under the rug and ignored it.

I don’t care if she’s the boss/owner of the business/operation because when you hire someone you need to have a certain level of respect for them – because in return the employee will respect you enough to do the work for you. If the owner doesn’t show respect for you, it’s very hard for the employee to justify to continue to do the work there.

I told her I had 3 pieces of artwork that were accepted into a show out in Worcester which isn’t exactly around the corner from me and the gallery there gave me two days where I happened to be working for her. We agreed that initially Saturday would have been the best day to come in late because she had something later in the afternoon. But I decided to be courteous and ask the gallery if they had an alternative day to drop off artwork and luckily they had. But because of the incident with my prints I described in my last post, “Trick or Treat, Where’s my Prints?” my initial delivery day got bumped to Wednesday fine… Tuesday night I receive an email from my ‘boss’ and she tells me that she’s found reception help for her gallery event that following Thursday and the next day when I originally was scheduled to work after telling her that things weren’t working out but wanted me to come in on Saturday to finish the brochure!! (what?)

So, the point in all of this is that I rearranged my complicated schedule and life to fit her schedule and life, but she dropped me from my scheduled work like it was nothing. Yes, I get that I am an employee — but I wouldn’t even call myself an employee — I was an assistant and she pushed me around as one.

I was also taught that you put the extensions on numbers “th”s, “st”s, etc. on a printed document. My education at Moravian and experience at the print shop taught me this. It looks so much ‘tighter’ and ‘proper’ too, to do this with your numbers in a printed document. I have a friend in my circle whose majored in scheduling and he told me that that’s the right way to do it. However my boss at this gallery told me, “NO you don’t ever put the extensions on numbers in a printed document!!!!”. I never was told this AT ALL. I also got into an argument with someone from my time at Moravian about this and she disagrees with me and that I should “follow” the boss… because she writes the check… really?! I’d be fired from the print shop (and this person I argued with continued to tell me that I wasn’t working at a print shop here… excuse me… same technical rules apply whether or not you work at a print shop when doing PRINT DESIGN) if I constantly made mistakes like that! It’s not like this is the only job I have offered to me.

There were other things there that made me really uncomfortable and that’s why I decided to leave. At this point in my career, I deserve some level of respect and trust when you hire me for the position that I have applied for. I am not looking to be pushed around and treated like crap. I’ve been through too much to put up with that anymore.