The Eve of a New Year

I am thinking of sending a big stack of very large prints to Taschen.  I thought they were a German company, but I looked for an address online and they are located in Los Angeles.  If you are not familiar with them, they publish some of the most expensive books in the business, many of them photography books.  And the company is not shy.  So, I thought, perhaps I should ship the prints via UPS with  return postage included.  I can afford to do this now that I am not paying for a studio, for electric for the studio, for printing materials, papers, art supplies, etc.  It all begins tomorrow.  I am even getting deposit money back from both the electric company and the landlord.  The new owner and his property manager who is also his daughter and who is a drop dead knockout, came over for the walk through yesterday.  Everything is groovy.  I wanted to ask the property manager to sit on the red couch, the only object left in the studio, for one last shoot, but I figured I would be putting my deposit in jeopardy.  Selah.

If Taschen sends the prints back to me, I guess I have not really lost anything but some pride.  There are other big galleries I may send some prints to as well.  I have time to think about it now.  Last night sitting on the couch eating and drinking and watching t.v., I wondered where I ever got the energy for the effort I made these past six years.  I am exhausted and only want to read and watch movies and sleep.  The factory takes the rest of me.  And without selling prints, I will never make one again.  What is there to do with them?  I have eight really large framed prints in my house right now that I have no place for.  I'm ready to sell them for the dealer's discount.  Let me know.

Yesterday morning, I had large 36"x24" prints all over the living room floor.  At least a hundred of them.  My god, I thought, these are beautiful.  It killed me to sleeve them and store them in archival plastic under my beds.  I want to see a gallery full of them.  And so. . . I am thinking.

With the smaller prints that are 16"x24", I may sell them for a very reasonable price.  But where?  People tell me "the internet," but do pictures really sell that way?

But enough of that now.  It is the Eve of a New Year which usually has little if any meaning to me, but since I must turn in my studio keys today, exactly six years from when I picked them up, and since I have someone to celebrate with in some quiet way (we will be home well before midnight), I am happy to recognize the event.  Ili says she always makes black eyed peas and something on New Years Day, and she and my buddy want to watch one of the bowl games that features the school they both attended.  I have virtually no interest in it except for them, and for once in my life, I will comfortably settle in to doing what someone else wants to do and like it.  It is preparation for playing Pinochle.

And so. . . let the games begin.  Enjoy tonight in the way you prefer.  You can tell me about it tomorrow.