John Chester, Wild Apple

On Notice

First timers on Wild Apple's website, www.wildapple.com, will see an intro page with a severe copyright warning in multiple languages. 

Wild Apple is a particularly friendly company, so it feels a little strange to put such a stark warning at the forefront of someone's experience with us.  But it's an important enough issue that anything we can do to discourage copyright infringement seems worth it.  Over the years Wild Apple and our extended family of artists and employees have been ripped off more times than I care to imagine.  It is an especially vexing problem in China.

Wild Apple pursues all infringements we find in the US with good success, and go after many cases outside our borders - even though it is much more challenging in countries that offer lackluster support for international copyright law.  We have been a part of the Art Copyright Coalition (www.artcc.org) since its inception, and work with other publishers in the industry to crack down on illegal cases.

Once you have seen the web page with the stern message once, it doesn't come up when you return to the site - we really do want to be the friendly company!

Trade Show Obsessing

With the Atlanta Decor Expo trade show coming up (September 8-10), there is a lot of rushing around here to make sure the booth and its hundreds of details will be just right.  We always have one point person in charge – that’s Maureen now – and I’m sympathetic to the position, having lived it for several years.

Trade shows are great events for obsessive people like me, because you can create minutia-filled lists and fixate on packing technique.  Our first show ever was in Chicago, and I had every picture, order form, thumb tack and staple perfectly organized in our car (yes, we drove from Vermont).  Set-up went pretty darn smoothly.  It wasn’t until the morning of the show that I realized I had forgotten to pack my pants.  For some reason, my less organized wife considered this humorous, while I scrambled to find an open clothing store.

Thus began a weird phenomenon for me of forgetting some item of clothing at each show (belt, socks, tie).  I assure you it was not a conscious action; I’m not sure what the psychological implications are.  The low point was finding myself buying briefs, and not the legal sort, in High Point, NC.  I’d keep that to myself, but Laurie has been kind enough to share the story with enough people that this blog won’t have much impact.

I seem to have strayed, some distance in fact, from my original point:  When you see Maureen at the show, be nice to her!

Choices We Make

The moment of truth.  You arrive at the airport just after they "close" checked baggage for your flight.  Your bag is small enough to take as a carry on, but with the new security regulations, you know you'll have to throw away a lot of your "stuff."  What do you do?

An unnamed Wild Apple salesperson was faced with exactly this dilemma today.  She (or he) chose her (or his) stuff over getting home fast: it meant getting home at midnight instead of late afternoon.  And what it came down to, she (or he) confided, was the really expensive shampoo that she (or he) didn't want to part with.

I loved that she (or he) was willing to tell me what happened, question aloud her (or his) own sanity, proclaim embarrassment, and laugh and laugh about it.  I like that this person made a choice, maybe the right one, maybe not, and instead of stewing about it like I probably would have, rode it out with humor.

Good Knight

Confirming that sometimes the world is fair and just, King Arthur Flour won the latest Deane C. Davis Award for the best business in Vermont.  Being a Vermont award, it goes beyond just measuring financial results, and puts equal weight on employee workplace, environmental impact, and community involvement.  It’s good to have a role model company in our neighborhood.

King Arthur Flour is an Employee Stock Ownership Plan company, something that is a dream and intention we have for Wild Apple.  King Arthur exudes passion and quality – I can’t say that I ever spent much time thinking about flour or baking, but the company’s excitement for the product draws you in.  The company doesn’t just sell products, it brings education and inspiration and celebration of baking – there’s a lot to be learned and applied to the art business.

Wild Apple won the Deane Davis Award in 2002, but I feel like we have lots of learning left to do.

John on Johns

I have a question that has been perplexing me for some time:

Why do people decorate bathrooms with pictures of bathrooms? 

It's no secret in the decorative art business that pictures of bathtubs, sinks and toilets have an apparently endless market.  But why?

Not that I haven't done it myself - we used to have this picture of a dozen or so dogs politely lined up behind a mailbox, patiently waiting their turn for relief.  OK, so it wasn't a conventional bathroom picture, but it tied into the theme.

Is it that we haven't shaken a secret affinity for potty humor from our childhood?  That wouldn't explain the whole phenomenon, as only some of the imagery available is whimsical.  Is it that bathrooms represent a respite, some kind of private retreat?  Is it just something that has become customary, a social "norm?"

Don't get me wrong, we love bathroom art at Wild Apple, and offer a good selection (http://wildapple.com/fineart/catresults.asp?Artist=&Style=&Content=Bath&Keywords=&rbSizeType=0&ddlPopularSize=&ddlWidth=&ddlHeight=&ddlSizeType=&Submit=Search%21).  I'd just love to know what it is that drives so many of us to decorate bathrooms with pictures of bathrooms.  Does anybody out there have a plausible theory?