One in a Million

Have you been to that fancy French department store? Yeah, that one, with the red and white bulls-eye? Yeah, Tarjey.

Okay we all do it, if you want to make a thing sound better than it is just give it a French twist. Well, they are rude and snotty and think that they are so much better than their poor English-speaking sods, but they still need us to get them out of jams, but boy can they bake.

And they make anything sound better because we English-speaking guys have a bit of an inferiority complex. Com-on, just take a look at Larry the Cable Guy and you'll know all there is to know about why.

And that boys and girls is exactly what Jack Duganne thought, make it sound French and everyone will forget it's an ink jet print. It worked and now we say with pride Giclee just like that was a different thing from a print we run off on our home printer.

It is different, but the process isn't, Giclee is still an ink jet print.

So who cares? You do. You should care, you should be grateful to ole Jack and Epson and smile knowing that your precious work so lovingly drawn out with blood, sweat, toil and tears can be safeguarded from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or at least Oregon weather.

You have enough space to store all your work? Aren't you special. The rest of us will just dig out the closet stretcher and cram a few more works into the coat closet.

That's the problem. It is far easier to create work than it is to sell it. I have a file full of motorcycle pictures I did for the Thunder show, (Which is fantastic, if you haven't seen it and why haven't you and you'd better get in line cause they are coming in in droves, did you hear me droves and you might have to fight your way up the steps and all those guys in black leather can make fighting up steps a tricky thing, so just stand in line like a regular person and wait your turn). I don't really know what I'm going to do with the ones I printed and framed. I might just give them to the Coos Bay Harley shop. If I don't it's the closet for sure.

And what if you are one of the lucky ones? One of the guys who never have enough stock to fill a gallery even if you were asked? What do you do when a client asks what you have done and can they see it?

It's that French word which means ink jet. That's right Giclee. It can be your best friend. Say you want to do a promotion. Do you offer one of your painstakingly wrought masterpieces or do you just get by with a coupon? I'd want a Giclee. I could live with giving away a Giclee, but not one of my master prints. And that client, a folder full of Giclees is a lot easier than dragging out a dozen framed pieces especially when you work gallery-size.

I had a terrifying experience last week. My hard drive died. You may have heard about this before. If I had a set of good Giclees, I wouldn't be nearly so frantic. You can re-create a work from a good Giclee. Try that from a half-century plus memory and see what you get. If your work means anything to you you owe it to yourself and your gifts to have giclees made of each project as you finish it. Then when disaster strikes you can laugh.