It's Just Not Cricket

I had been travelling around the UK and the Channel Islands with the National Crafts Fair for a few years when I was invited to join a North East enterprise which was going to take some selected crafts people to the major Homes exhibition in Birmingham. For a small contribution they would build a whole stand for about 8 of us to take up a large space in the exhibition which was unachievable to individuals due to the costs.

Why not have a look at the National Crafts post, you can always come back to this article.

They provided training from experts on how to deal with professional buyers who attended this show and also our hotel bills for the week. When we arrived to the event we found a brilliant set up with the experts there to help us, and they had created a professional office area where we could sit down with potential buyers and discuss their, and our, requirements.

The first day everyone was nervous and a little apprehensive as we were approached by buyers from top stores with their teams who would inspect our work in great detail and ask all sorts of business questions about costs etc. Luckily we had been well trained and there were people from our team who would step in if needed. That first day I took some orders from galleries to provide paintings and prints based on photos they would supply. It was a good first day.

The next day changed my life (or so I thought), a certain Sam Gafar approached my stand area and spent ages checking out my watercolours and talking to me on what outlets I had at the time. I mentioned that I was part of The National Crafts travelling round the country. He left, then came back with a lady who apparently ran his business. She told me they had galleries in Birmingham, Edinburgh, and London, and were in the process of opening in New York. Sam then asked if I would join them and only paint for these galleries, they would buy every painting I had on the stand and all future work. I was a bit shocked so I asked for help from my team who couldn’t find any fault with the contract he was offering. So I agreed and received a cheque there and then for all the paintings I had with me. I rang my wife and we were over the moon.

A few weeks later I visited the Birmingham gallery and was impressed with some of the named artists that were exhibiting there. I was also impressed with the Porsche that he was driving.

He said he would submit a couple of my watercolours to a major art auction and then have his assistants bid for them to push the prices up so that made my work a more valuable asset to potential clients visiting his galleries. I continued to paint for him and received cheques, things looked good. He suggested I do a series of Test Cricket grounds so I visited these venues taking lots of photographs. I produced 6 originals (the prints can be seen at our website, https://ukwatercolours.com). I went back down to Birmingham where I signed a load of limited edition prints over the course of the day, and kept a set of proofs for myself (hence the prints at our gallery).

And a few months later is where it all goes wrong. I had supplied him with a great deal of paintings but the payment was being delayed and I had to keep chasing him for money. It came in slowly and not the full amounts, and then, after a lot of stress, a cheque arrived to cover the artwork I had supplied. Feeling better then but soon deflated when the bank contacted me to say the cheque had bounced. I contacted Sam and he arranged to meet me at Birmingham but the next day he cancelled that, and after that I couldn’t get in touch with anyone there.

I was now financially struggling and could only go to the bank for help. The manager was very sympathetic and agreed to help. I had to take a £10,000 loan out to get me through and this cost me £300 plus, a month (Early 1990s) for the next three years. I contacted Anthony James and set off for Jersey once more which helped me have faith in my work again. I had solicitors contact Sam Gafar to see if I could get any money or even my paintings back but it turned out I was behind a lot of others including The Inland Revenue who took everything that was available.

It was a bad period but we got through it, and I still see some of my original paintings in galleries, especially in The Lake District, but apparently I have no claim to them.

So can you blame me if I roll eyes whenever someone comes into the gallery and tells me they can make me a star.