The Prodigal
Seven
OUR BIRTHDAYS CAME AND WENT. It was no big deal. We were too busy for more than a celebratory dinner. After Labor Day, life had accelerated. Kate and I spent as much time as possible in the studio, but one end was now stacked almost to the ceiling with the fall fashion line from Ice Queen Sportswear. Melody, Lissa, and our new part-time assistant Penny were ironing, hanging, filling orders, and keeping the books. We considered expanding the studio to a second bay.
And Penny… Penny was a sophomore business student at SCU we hired on work study for twelve hours of work a week. She helped with shipping orders and keeping the books. You couldn’t imagine a bookkeeper who looked more the part. She was five-two, a little overweight, mouse brown hair that she wore in a bun, and thick glasses. She was intense and we all wondered if she had any social life at all. She regularly told us she was available any time if we needed additional help.
The first time she walked into the studio and saw the Trips standing naked on a small platform with a curtain partly covering them as they looked out, I was afraid she’d freak out and run screaming out of the studio. Instead, she glanced at the teens, looked over where Kate and I were painting, and gave a big sigh. She walked right in front of us, picked up all the clothes the kids had left scattered on the floor in their hurry to pose and hung them neatly on one of the clothing racks. Then she went to her little desk and started working on the day’s accounting. That was the entire response from our unflappable accountant.
Canvasses were gradually being filled with works that pleased Kate and me and our agent. School was taking a bite out of our schedules, but I’d insisted that racquetball was now going to be limited to a single two-hour session each evening. My sports conditioning class with Coach Frederickson was at nine in the morning on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and all other classes were at PCAD this term. My toughest class was printmaking. You’d think that a class that was primarily technical would have been easier, but learning how to work with lithographic stones, intaglio, etching, and woodblocks was both hard and intense. That was the class that Kate and I had together with Sandra. Printmaking was far more compatible with Sandra’s style than Kate’s and mine. Melody had taken the class last year as part of her textiles training.
Clarice came to the studio late in September to review what Kate and I had ready. She brought our entire review committee with her. We weren’t expecting that.
“Doc Henredon,” I said in surprise when I answered the bell. “Welcome. I didn’t know you were stopping by today, but you are always welcome.”
“You need a studio that is not completely hung with clothes,” Doc laughed as he came through the racks of Ice Queen Sportswear. “I like what you’ve done with the rest of the studio, though.” Since the last time Doc had been to the studio, we’d taken his advice and painted all the wall surfaces in Munsell Gray. We used indirect lighting almost exclusively now and had built a little stage to pose our subjects on. Kate offered Doc a cup of tea or coffee as the doorbell rang again and I headed back to the door of the studio.
“Hi, Clarice,” I said. “Oh! Mr. Bowers. Welcome to our little studio.”
“Please, call me Bob. I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to see what our new artists are up to. When Clarice called, I insisted.”
“Doc’s here, too,” I said. “Are we expecting anyone else?”
“No, Tony, that’s it for now. We want to see the paintings and then talk some serious business,” Clarice said. We joined Kate and Doc and served more tea. We had an easel set at center of the stage with good lighting and the three sat in the chairs we provided. We’d decided to bring the pieces out one at a time, alternating between Kate’s and mine. The three critics stayed seated for about twenty seconds before they put their cups down and approached the stage for Kate’s first new painting. We waited for them to say something to us, but Clarice simply said, “Next,” and the three sat down to wait while we changed paintings. I could hear them talking quietly among themselves, but couldn’t make out anything they said. It was like having a jury sitting back and marking scores. They each had a pad of paper and made notes. As soon as I had my first painting on the easel, they were back on their feet and examining it in detail, sometimes pointing at an area.
I was sure, as the afternoon progressed, that the three were enjoying the art and were enthusiastic supporters, but they seemed to have another agenda at the same time. Twenty paintings, examination, and discussion took three hours. Kate and I were exhausted when she helped me hoist the full Bacchanalia onto the stage. I had a special stand I had used for the mural rendering as the eight-foot plywood backing would collapse the easel.
“Not this one,” Bob said emphatically as they stood to examine it. “All the others.”
“I agree,” Doc said. I couldn’t believe they were knocking my newest masterpiece.
“It’s not finished yet,” I said. “I know it looks a little rough right now, but it’s the centerpiece for all the others.”
“It’s not a criticism of the painting, Tony,” Clarice said. Kate was clutching my hand. “The topic is not whether it should be exhibited.” She turned to Bob. “I concur.”
“And Gerhardt will do it?” Doc asked. “And the investor?”
“I sent them the photos Jade made and they were thrilled.”
“Magnificent. Magnificent.”
They looked up at Kate and me, probably seeing two terrified college kids who had no idea what was going on. Well, that’s what we were.
“Dinner,” Clarice said. “We’ll beat the rush if we go now.” We closed up the studio and followed our critics to Carmine’s. Clarice had apparently called ahead. Wendy met us at the door and led us to a private booth near the back. She gave Kate and me each a searing kiss before she disappeared back to the kitchen.
“Ah,” Bob said. “The Odalisque. You do make love to all your models, don’t you?”
“I hate to be pushy,” Kate said, “but would someone please tell me what this is all about and why we’re all at dinner?
“What have you been learning this semester?” Doc started.
“Oil technique, 3D concepts, printmaking, storytelling,” I said. Those were my classes.
“Printmaking,” Doc said.
“Gerhardt Strauss is an old German who lives in Godforsaken, Georgia just across the river from purgatory.”
“Now, now, Clarice. It isn’t nearly that hot there this time of year,” Bob said. “And the town across the river is Phenix City.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.
“He’s a fine art printer,” Doc said, cutting through Clarice and Bob’s jokes. “The topic of this discussion is doing fine art limited edition prints of your works. You’ve hit a level of popularity that is way ahead of your ability to turn out new works and you shouldn’t be dependent on flooding the market with paintings. But you can both increase your marketability by producing and selling a small edition of signed lithographs. Gerhardt would be the top choice for producing those prints.”
“But isn’t that just a printing press running copies? We could do that from the computer,” Kate said.
“We’re not talking about giclée,” Doc said. “Nothing against that, but Gerhardt is old school. He still maintains a photo lab and works with film. He also developed a unique seven-color separation process, specifically for art prints. He uses a printing press, yes, but he uses a single-color offset press to pull one color at a time. It’s a dry blending process and produces sharp edges rather than the rather muddy blends one sometimes gets with high speed wet presses.”
I wondered if there was going to be a test on this, because I was sure I should have been taking notes.
“What we want to do is ship everything to Georgia and have you travel there over Thanksgiving to proof the pieces as they come off the press. Most of the work will be done by the time you get there, but Gerhardt will expect you to inspect every print against the original and verify that it meets your expectations. Anything that doesn’t will be destroyed,” Clarice said.
“The burden is on the artist to make sure the signed and numbered prints are perfect,” Bob said. “You have to be able to see the flaws in your own work.”
“How many would be in each edition?” Kate asked.
“Depending on how he feels about the quality of each press pass,” Doc said, “he’ll probably start with two hundred. By the time the seventh pass is through, he’ll be under a hundred. He’ll expect you to winnow it down to about a total edition of fifty to seventy-five.”
“But for Tony, it will be the smallest number of any print that will determine the total edition,” Clarice said. “Kate, you have created fine pieces that each stand on their own. Tony’s are all part of a suite with a single theme. If one of the pieces comes out with only twenty usable, that will be the number used for all the pieces. Everything else will be destroyed. We’ll divide the total suite of twenty into four suites of five each. That makes it possible for a person to own a complete suite for a reasonable price. It also lets the big investor know that he can get the same numbers in all four suites. The first approved piece from your total edition will be signed as a printer’s proof. You’ll give that one to Gerhardt as part of his fee. While the process no longer generates the deterioration in the plates that started the tradition, it is still widely held that the first acceptable print from the plates will be the highest quality. The next five will be artist’s proofs. Number five, you’ll break up and give to people you feel especially close to or who are close to your work. It’s a way to make a gift of your artwork without taking a huge money-maker for you out of circulation like you’ve done with the oils that you have kept for yourselves and refused to sell.”
“Do the other four go on sale?” I asked.
“No. For the time-being, you place the other four artist’s proofs in the vault. Like the printer’s proof, these are considered to have the highest quality of the print run and they are for the artist to hold and sell when he or she needs money. If the rest of the edition sells out, the artist’s proofs will be worth four to five times the original offering price when you bring them out of the vault. Some of them might go for as much as the original oils did.”
This was too much information. We were talking about having twenty or fifty or seventy-five of every piece we painted. What would they sell for? Fifty bucks? I was being a snob, I knew, but it felt like printed copies of my paintings would just cheapen all my artwork. Why buy an oil if you can have a good copy? I had to find out.
“How much do we sell the prints for?” I asked.
“That has to do with another piece of the strategy and what we see happen with the oils at your exhibition,” Bob said. I was trying to figure out when he graduated from being a critic to being one of our advisors—not that I minded. “The pieces from Gerhardt will be priced higher than the normal market would bear. But in order to push people toward them, you need to have your other works in print as well.”
“Huh?” Kate and I were both confused.
“Jade has taken extraordinarily good digital photos of each of your works, first for the catalog, but also for future printing. We’ll gradually release giclée prints from your previous show. The thing that preserves the value of a giclée print, which is basically just an extremely high-end inkjet print, is the guarantee that there won’t be any more than the signed edition that ever get signed. Since the file is on the computer, it could be printed again, but it can never be signed again. Those prints will be offered at about a hundred or a hundred-fifty each. The edition will be one hundred to two hundred and there are no printer’s proofs or artist’s proofs. The first group of the Gerhardt prints will only be sold as a full suite, all twenty pieces numbered one to five in the edition. They will be $10,000. The next five in each individual suite of five will sell for $2,500 for the suite. Numbers eleven and up will be available for five hundred a piece with no effort to keep the numbers the same for pieces not bought as a suite. We might not begin offering them for a year or more.”
“So, the first buyers at ten thousand don’t get a price break for taking them all?” Kate asked. “That seems counter-intuitive. I guess I think in terms of discounts for bulk purchases.”
“Well, Kate,” Doc said, “when we’re dealing with real collectors, they are getting a discount. By buying them all at the same time, they get the added bonus of having all matching edition numbers. Plus, they won’t get them all at once. By the time they get the last pieces in the suite, the prices of each individual piece could easily be fifty percent higher than the initial offering. A person buying late would almost never get all the numbers to match. We’re dealing with art and being intuitive or logical has nothing to do with it.”
“What would my prints go for?” she asked. There was a blank look around the table. “Well, you said Tony’s would be $500 each. I don’t suppose mine would go for that much.”
“Of course they would, Kate. You certainly don’t think your paintings are worth less than Tony’s, do you?” Clarice asked.
“Uh… sort of,” she whispered.
“The only difference is that we don’t have the ability to leverage a suite with your paintings, though some of them might be themed together. We’ll look at that again,” Clarice said.
We continued talking all through dinner and getting a crash-course in marketing art and advanced printmaking. Kate and I were overwhelmed and tried to explain it all to Lissa, Melody, and Wendy. We’d agreed to spend Thanksgiving week in Bib Overalls, Georgia that and neither of us was sure how that would go over.
The family meeting went well. Everyone was excited that we were going expand into prints and that we had such a great opportunity. There was discussion about who would be going where and when.
“Uh… family?” I said, trying to get a word in edgewise.
“What is it, darling?” Lissa asked. “Are you being overwhelmed by the women?”
“A little, maybe,” I said. “But I kind of have an idea and well… Here’s the thing. We are all a group. We spend a lot of time as a group. We make love as a group. And, yeah, we make love individually, too, but I was thinking that maybe we don’t spend enough time one-on-one. I was looking at the schedule and thinking about Lissa and I going to Opens in a week. No one else has time off school, so it will just be the two of us. We’ve been talking about who all is going to Georgia over Thanksgiving, but Kate and I are going to be working a lot there and if we had a companion, she’d just sit in a hotel room alone all day. I’m thinking we could just the two of us go. That would give me a week alone with Lissa and a week alone with Kate.” Melody raised her hand.
“What about Meddy?” she pouted.
“I want to take Meddy to New York with me for my opening in December. Just the two of us, darling.”
“That sounds like so much fun!” Lissa said. “They are each working trips so we have something to do besides lie around in a hotel and have endless steamy hot sex.”
“Or teasing,” I said with a grimace.
“Yes, but even that will be hot,” Lissa smiled. “It gives each of us one-on-one time with Tony. I think we should plan the same kind of time with each other. This will be fun!”
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