selling sculpture... paperwork ?

[daaub]

Hi

What kind of paperwork is used when formally selling work?
Do you go with a ... Contract, Receipt, Certificate of Authenticity, ect?
I am unsure how to structure and what to put into any of these. Could anyone inform me of how they deal with selling their work and post examples of such documents.

Thanks,

[Julianna]

Hi, Daub.

I use contracts for commissioned work. You may want to take a look at the Model Agreements for Visual & Media Artists in Ontario (http://www.carfacontario.ca/services/mavmao) available from CARFAC Ontario (http://www.carfacontario.ca). The contracts apply nationwide, and cover everything from the use of models to renting your work.

I always provide a receipt and a certificate of authenticity. The certificate is in leiu of signing my work (not much permanence in soapstone or alabaster for something as delicate as a signature), and has the title, medium, dimensions, a signature and the date. On the back, I have printed care instructions and a reminder about copyrights etc.

Attached is a sample receipt which I have modified from what is offered by File Maker Pro (I have since switched to OpenOffice.org, which is FREE :)). Stores which sell office supplies also have books of receipts which can be used, but few of them have fields which are useful for artists (or lack the fields which don't apply to artists).

[daaub]

Hi Julianna,
Thanks for the example and for the info.


While looking on the web for some examples I have come across a couple handy websites regarding taxes, contracts, ect..

http://www.artstaxinfo.com/artists.shtml

http://www.artquest.org.uk/artlaw/contracts/index.html

http://labweb.education.wisc.edu/artcommunity/artisttips/index.asp

Hope this helps others also...

[HappySculpting]

Hi Dauub,

Thanks for those links. I'm looking at getting some of my work in a gallery and needed to know what to as far as a contract etc. The artquest site had a lot of info on this.

Thanks and good luck to you with your work too..

[Landseer]

Good info on the Wisc site, the "artist statement" guidelines finally gives a decent explanation of what to put in one in the form of these leading questions to get started with in "answering" in your statement;

* Why have you chosen to create this imagery?
* What role does light, color, form, space, and/or motion play in your work?
* What role does emotional, philosophical, social, or political content play?
* How does your art relate to your life?
* What does your art say about your ideals, about a perfect world, or a less than perfect world?
* Do you have a favorite saying, poem or song that embodies your art making? How does this quotation echo your thoughts?
* How do you feel when you are working at your art? * How do you wish others to feel when viewing your work?
=====

I have thought of putting one together but hadn't a clue about compiling one, maybe this will give me a start.

Anyone have short examples of your own you would like to share here?

Looks like my Ebay sales this month have taken a serious jump, I just cleared out/sorted some 30 emails dealing with sales, "what is my shipping charge?" "what will the shipping cost be for.." etc

As long as we are on "sales" in general, I'm finding now trying to keep all this Ebay email stuff, who paid, who is due, what they bought, where it's going, what finishes, and then saving the customer info for mailing list and organized is a real headache.

Typical routine- Ebay generated mail tells me such and such item has sold etc., then I have to lookup the shipping costs based on the item, weight and zip, email the buyer an invoice and wait for a response.
If they use PayPal, then I get yet another email from PayPal telling me a payment was made, then I have to email the customer to let them know I rec'd payment, ask what finish they want if they didn't say, and tell them about when the item will be leaving.

Then when it's ready to ship, I send yet another email with the tracking# and expected day of delivery.

Then I need to save their order to the best Ive come up with so far- a running plain text file with the date, their full contact info, what they ordered, the price, the shipping and total. THEN I can close out those emails concerning the order which till this point were minimized on my desktop so they don't get "lost" in the mail folder.

So now where it gets to be more of a pain is 2 people are sending checks, so I'm keeping all these emails etc about their orders, shipping address etc minimized on my desktop, the customer order plain text running file gets all the info and a notation of payment pending which I have to later remember to edit out once paid. Another customer ordered off my web store 3 items, 2 have shipping included by zones but the third doesnt yet have that and I'm NOT happy with the zones system I came up with anyway so it may be scrapped. So since the lady already paid I had to invoice her for shipping the third item, wait on that etc.

If my web store doesn't add shipping then like Ebay's sales I have to look up and invoice shipping.

As anyone can read, it's not terrible now but no doubt this is all going to get way out of hand and I can see lots of potentials for screwups.

I also found some info on coldfusion files and generating a self subscribe newsletter and I'd like to add something like that to my site too.

There has GOT to be a solution to this, maybe even using my domain's mySQL database somehow to store and retrieve all this customer info and order garbage, and/or some kind of software for MAC either shareware or free.

I tried an excell spreadsheet for this but it's pretty tedious and took a lot of copy/pasting to fill individual cells- probably a dozen for every order, I gave up on that idea.

Any ideas or solutions?

As an aside, Ebay disallows linking to .html in auction pages, if one tries inserting an url it kicks back a red error that this isn't allowed- even though you pay for the listing and all their fees.
However, I have found a way around that and it works, it also provides a handy link for people to get to your web site OFF Ebay, and that is using the .doc or .ppt extension.
So now all of my Ebay pages have a link to my .ppt and .doc formatted catalogue.

[Landseer]

Here's a statement I came up with this morning;

Back in the second half of the 19th century, times were slower, mail took
weeks if not months to reach a recipient, electric lights were a revolutionary world changing new technology much as computers today are.
A trip to a city that is but an hour drive away today, took perhaps two days
via the standard transportation of the day- horse and buggy.

There was little mass production as we know it, certainly not on the scale of today. Women wore long dresses, the men wore suits, hats, and carried a pocket watch. They carved wood and stone, as well as sculpted clay and cast metals by laborious methods, which today the cost of would be prohibitive.

The style of the day in everything from clothes to architecture was frills, lace, decorative, elaborate, perhaps even excessive by today's standards. Even mundane utility articles as well as buildings were made, built, or constructed to last from one generation to the next, and beyond.
Most of this tradition is now lost to time, changing "styles" increased costs, and demands for things to be had quickly to name but a few reasons. As a result, we have become a throw-away society where few things are made to last, and buildings are demolished (if they don't fall apart first) before they have seen thirty years of use.
In my teen years of rescuing carvings, metalwork and sculptures from buildings being demolished, even I at the age of thirteen could tell that great care went into the design, making and construction. I could examine a terra cotta sculpture and see the long deceased sculptor's finger prints and marks still pressed into the clay and not only feel a connection, but start wondering about the life of the artist who created the anonymous work.

Who was he? where did he live? what was his life like in 1890? what were his thoughts during the hours it took to create the work? and so forth.
It is easier and we relate more to someone in a photograph who lived in 1890 than someone we read about who lived in the 12th century and almost seems to be little more than a myth or story to us.
Before long, I wanted to try creating the same sculptures, replicating the processes and designs, in some small way subconsciously I'm sure- to try to bring back the style. This is certainly not possible on today's steel and glass boxes, but perhaps in a small measure in people's homes and gardens as a sort of shrine if you will, to the lost Victorian and the subsequent "Art Deco" periods.

While it is unlikely we will ever return to the styles of the Victorian or Art Deco eras, I hope with my sculptures that people will be able to touch, view and walk around them and feel the same awe and connection to the artists of another century whose lives were so totally different from ours today.


To the clients I want my work to be unique, surprising, stunning, interesting, and full of a connection to history

[Julianna]

Re: keeping track of stuff.

Warning: very off topic.

I've been working on a database (actually, converting one) for OpenOffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org) (freeware office suite) to keep track of my art stuff (patrons, sculptures, societies, opportunites for shows, etc). The discussion for the purchase order portion is here (http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=28613), and there is also a sample database which one of the forum users uploaded to help me with mine.

There has also been talk of a new project (http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=28865&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=) to create pre-made databases. It seems that an eBay sales/communication tracking-tool could be one of them. I'll be contributing my database to the project once it's completed (and once the project has a home).

You can PM me if you have questions (or post them on the other forum).

[HappySculpting]

Hi Julianna,

That sounds like an excellent idea. I am getting one of the largest "Favorites" lists and if this will be a place to post contacts and websited and organize them that would be so helpful. Also, I took a look at the purchase order form that you are creating and it looks like it would really do the job well.

Please keep us posted as to the progress of the project so we can get it too for our art paperwork.

Thanks,

[Julianna]

For those of you who are interested: I have launched a new project/website, e-eAsel (http://www.e-easel.org). e-eAsel is a project to provide [free] open-source applications for artists and artists' groups, and the first application is a database used to manage an artists' artwork, inventory, contacts, sales, and opportunities. The database includes the purchase order form I posted above.

[warren01]

Julianna,
Very interesting. I will have to spend more time and review in depth. Thanks for sharing.

warren

[grommet]

What do other people use for keeping themselves organized? Does anyone have a really easy method of tailoring thumnail sheets for different show submissions? tracking deadlines & submissions?
Has anyone tried this?

http://www.gyst-ink.com/index.php

[GlennT]

What do other people use for keeping themselves organized? [/URL]

Those piles over there.

[grommet]

you mean the pile the cat just skidded through while playing hockey, or the teetering pile that includes product literature? No, something better than that.

[GlennT]

The pile held in place by the book File It, Don't Pile It.

[cheesepaws]

Since nearly everything is done digitally these days I simply have five working folders on my computer desktop:

New (in progress) Projects
Pending Projects
Rejected Projects
Accepted Projects
Old Projects

Every show in the New Projects file has the deadline date in the sub-folder title. I've never done a thumbnail sheet nor seen them requested.

[grommet]

Cheese, so then what's in the folders, links to websites/ show information, word documents/ forms? A great idea to just drop stuff into the next folder.
I've been asked for thumbnails.

[cheesepaws]

Cheese, so then what's in the folders, links to websites/ show information, word documents/ forms? A great idea to just drop stuff into the next folder.
I've been asked for thumbnails.

Well, every show is assigned a folder that has some form of the original call for entry or application (usually a PDF). Then it is just a lot of the same stuff over and over depending on what they require: cover letter, current CV, bio, statement, image list, etc….usually as word documents, but it depends on the application. For each show I also will have a sub-folder with the application images all formatted as required for that application. The point is to have an accurate record of what I submitted for every show. As such there is a lot of redundant information (in some cases nearly exact information from folders to folders) – but the redundancy also makes it easy to apply to new shows by locating an older application that required similar formatting and simply give it a tweak. It is also nice to archive copies of information/communication from the galleries for each specific show (makes it easy to retrieve when needed).

[grommet]

Thanks. So you have digital piles.:)