I had a surprise email from the proprietor of a gallery recently in which I showed my work some time ago. Looking through his accounts he discovered that not only had he sold one of my pictures, but also the greetings cards I had left with him. I had been paid for the picture sale, but not for the cards, and he wanted to rectify that omission. This has made me realise again just how valuable a part of my art output the production of cards has been.
This experience chimes also with the fact that on the occasion recentlyreetings of the wedding of the daughter of a friend of mine I sent my greetings on a card reproducing one of my pictures.* I was surprised to receive shortly afterwards a really warm letter of appreciation from her and her husband. They had both been really taken by the card, and indeed planned to frame it. This is not the first occasion on which I’ve had really good responses to one of my cards. The idea of reproducing paintings in this form has turned out to be a sound one, contributing not only to income (in a minor way) but also serving as a vehicle for communicating about it more widely. Whenever I have an exhibition I make a point of displaying small versions of some of the pieces on display, and usually they do sell quite well.
*You can see it the “gallery” Into the Woods, elsewhere in the website. The picture is entitled The Tree of Marriage.