The Problem with Sales in a Difficult Economy

I opened a workshop here in Minnesota to produce work that would sell on consignment in local galleries, and doing it this way would allow me to design and build whatever I wanted. This was a model that worked in the past. The recession hit though, and gallery sales slowed way down and still have not recovered. One of the consignment galleries in fact closed this year.

So rather than stay with a model of design-build-sell that currently does not work, I have focused more time during the past few years on workshop and methods development rather than actual output, and some of that work is detailed here. For example, both the light fixture and candle holder projects taught me technique that I applied to the Alice Table commission just about to be completed.

The idea to build the candle holders came from a short pile of imported scrap wood that I had no use for, but felt that such beautiful wood should not end up thrown away. I built ten, and brought five to a retail gallery, but again there they sit proving that not even product mix is the answer.

I was recently asked though to donate something to a benefit auction held on the University campus. Normally this would not have been realistic, but wouldn't you know that I had five small objects sitting in a cabinet back at the workshop that were readily available to use in a perfect sort of marketing experiment. Therefore from the five candle holders remaining at the shop, I decided to donate one small and one large candle holder, being really interested in what value they bring at auction relative to their value appraised by staff at the gallery where the other five reside.

The auction is coming up next week, and its result may give me some useful information back. If not no harm, no foul. If I learn something useful though, I'll provide it in an update.