I had a customer come in with her friend. We have a lot of different people come in, but you could really tell that these two ladies were not folks to generally frequent a gallery.
"My friend wants you to tell her who did a painting that she has."
"Well, that's not really our thing. We're a fine craft gallery and a fine art gallery would be more the place to look for that."
She pulled out her phone. She showed me a cock-eyed photo of a painting. It wasn't close up. It wasn't detailed. I could see what it was but she wanted to tell me the artist because . . .
Wait for it . . .
She took a photo of the painting, then sent it off to [a big box corporation] and had a canvas made of it.
:tips of the head:
She wanted me to tell her the name of the artist of the painting that she has.
1. It is not a painting that you have. You have a printed canvas.
2. You have a forged printed canvas of a work that you took a photo of.
3. The artist would now be [big box corporation] because you STOLE SOMEONE'S WORK!
She was stunned that we didn't know, even though they admitted at this point that the piece was from an original that the one woman's brother had and it was from Washington state.
:tips of the head:
We're in Ohio.
I tried to explain that copying an artist's work is kind of rough for the artist . . . I trailed off because the ladies turned and talked to another coworker and listened to not a word I was saying. A customer was at the counter. She witnessed the whole thing. She was appalled and was shaking her head in agreement with me.
Don't knock off artist's work. It isn't nice. If you do, don't come to a gallery expecting us to tell you all about the art that you just forged. That is not cool at all.
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