Like every business that we’ve ever been involved with, this one comes with its share of glam and the not-so-glam. Of course, we mostly dwell on the glam parts, which are so plentiful and fun that they far outweigh the other. But there are times when the not-so-glam takes over, when some of us adopt nicknames like “Linderalla” and “Schleperella,” and others among us come nail bitingly close to throwing in the towel and calling it a day. And then usually something good happens.
Yesterday was one of those days.
We’ve been merrily preparing for one of our most fun and popular shows, our annual “Bastille Day” bash, which features new works from some of our wonderful French artists, as well as some French inspired work by other artists. The problem was that we were missing seven important paintings for the show from one of our key players, Ewa Rzeznik.
We knew they’d been shipped in a big box from France three weeks ago, and when they didn’t arrive as expected, we exchanged several frantic phone calls with Ewa to try to find them. The final tracking information from the shipper’s website was none too reassuring: “Delivered to destination,” it stated, with no further explanation. Imagine trying to track down a package with the French national post office! And to make matters worse, imagine doing this on Bastille Day!
Here’s how our not-so-glam day evolved:
11:45 – Frantic phone call to Ewa: Still no package, no phone numbers to call, no paintings, and our phone is ringing off the hook with festive followers asking us about tonight’s show.
12:00 – More frantic phone calls, to local post offices.
12:15 – A live person answers the phone at the Sandy Springs post office!! After being on hold for a surprisingly short time, she says, “yes, we’ve got your package – it’s been here since July 3rd. We were just about to send it back to France.”
12:16 – No time to question how this could have happened, to tell her we never got a notice or to wonder why it was there. No time to ask any questions or point any fingers. Meg jumps in her car and dashes off to the post office, ID in hand.
1:15 – Meg returns with the package and we tear it apart, spilling Styrofoam peanuts all over the floor, while oohing and aahing with relief and excitement that all seven paintings have arrived safely and are as beautiful as expected.
1:30 – We quickly sweep up the front rooms before spreading peanuts all over the gallery.
2:00 – We photograph, measure, and inventory all the paintings.
3:00 – The paintings are all odd French sizes so we don’t have any frames for them. But we do manage to squeeze one painting into a gorgeous existing frame.
3:30 – We print labels and completely rehang the show to accommodate the new work. In our frantic hurry, we forget to tell Ewa that her paintings have arrived!
4:00 – We add a page to the website for Ewa’s new work, so thankful that after all these months, we can actually have something on her page that is not sold!
4:30 – We publish the website and send out an email to some of Ewa’s fan club, announcing the new paintings and telling them to come to our show which starts in … yeeks … 90 minutes!
4:45 – Phone rings. It’s Ewa. “You got the paintings!” she exclaims, as we overhear fireworks popping in the distance from her local Bastille Day celebration.
We assure her that they finally arrived, just in the nick of time, and she thanks us for getting them up on the website so fast. She marvels at the irony of international air travel and tells us that when she left for her Bastille Day celebration, her paintings were lost. When she returned, they were found and up on our website!
5:00 – Run home. Change clothes. Powder nose. Feed kids. Run back to Gallery.
6:00 – As the first of many festive followers arrive at our party, Meg and I turn to each other, clink our glasses and say, Happy Bastille Day! We’re back in the glam.
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Here’s a peek at Ewa’s new work:
Fishing Together
Wait Up!
We’re Flying!
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We hope you all enjoyed our Bastille Day celebration last night! It was so wonderful to see so many of you out and about, supporting us and commemorating the storming of the Bastille.
Tata!
HH
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