My wife asked me, towards the end of the recent Ilkley exhibition. “You’re not used to success.” Today I began to appreciate just what she might have meant by that. I am quite efficient and well-organised when it comes to putting on an exhibition. The trouble comes when I am faced with the job of sorting things out afterwards. This has become apparent this week when I discovered that I was really rather unclear about exactly who had bought which pieces, and in particular who was the intended destination of a print and who the purchaser of an original framed work. I think that we are all sorted out now, but it has become apparent that it really is very important to keep well-organised and detailed records of sales. The Ilkley show was certainly not the first occasion on which I have sold work, but the scale and diversity of my sales was something new. It is apparent that I do need to get a grip!
This could be a little more difficult than you think at the moment, as I am still rather disoriented by the fuss around my eightieth birthday. It has been nice to be the centre of attention for a little while, but it is thoroughly disorienting. I have to admit that I was both amused and flattered today by a friend who demanded that I be carbon-dated, as he didn’t believe the claims to age I was making. I thought that was quite witty!