What's the worst red flag you ignored because you wanted the gallery so bad?
Right, I'll go first and take the slagging.
Years back I was doing a small group show and the gallery owner told me, in the same breath, that she loved the work and that she'd "need to hold onto the blocks" in case she needed more prints down the line. I heard the second half and my brain just went "grand, she likes them." Handed over two carved blocks. Never saw them again. She didn't last the year and neither did the relationship, and I still think about those blocks more than I think about the money.
So what's yours. The thing you clocked at the time and talked yourself out of because the show was worth it. The contract with the weird clause, the dealer who was a bit too keen, the space that was somehow always empty when you dropped by. Tell me I'm not the only eejit.
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the "hold onto the blocks" line is the tell. anyone who wants to keep your blocks already knows they're not giving them back, they just said it in a friendly voice so you'd do the polite thing.
mine was a guy who ran a small space and kept saying "we'll figure out the paperwork later." i clocked it, told myself it was trust, and spent four months chasing him for a consignment sheet that never existed. the work came back eventually. the time didn't.
"We'll figure out the paperwork later" is the one I hear from students and it always ends the same way. The people who intend to give you a proper sheet have it ready before you ask, because they've done it before and it isn't difficult. Four months of chasing is four months you could have spent at the easel, and that's the real cost. I'd say treat the absence of a sheet as the answer, not as a delay.
That's the line I needed to hear twenty years ago, and I'd have argued with you at the time, which is the problem isn't it. "It's only a delay" is the story I told myself for months.
The bit about the sheet being ready before you ask is the whole thing. Anyone who's done it before has a template sitting in a folder and can have it to you by tea. Four months of chasing is four months of not carving, and you're dead right, that's the cost, not the fee.
"we'll figure out the paperwork later" is the same sentence as mine, just wearing a different jumper. friendly voice, no sheet, and you're the one doing the chasing like you're the one in the wrong. four months of that would wreck my head.
the bit that gets me is you clocked it. we always clock it. i remember standing there thinking "she's not going to give those back" and then handing them over anyway because saying no felt rude. that's the whole con, isn't it, they're not robbing you, they're just relying on you being polite.
glad the work came back anyway. the time is the sore one.