ps160508 Departure:  Charting the alternative courses  

His main purpose in life for the past two years has been the founding of a printmaking center in Seattle, one which embraces all that is an expression of the vision he held for generations. Both a dreamer plus realist in one person, he’s at the end point.

Out of money, out of time

Money is not the main reason I must stop my work on the Northwest Print Center Incubators, it is the only reason. Money is what it would have taken for the next step—which would probably have been to take a place at the Seattle Gift Show. An amount of $750 or $2,000, plus printing and labor costs.

Time, too, to get ready for the anticipated orders that would come from the show; then, after the show, continuing investments in production and fulfillment.

This step would finally prove the level of interest in the etching press line—both the Halfwood Etching Presses and the WeeWoodie Rembrandt Presses. The press-making element was to be the “cash cow” and reason-for-being for many of the elements of the Northwest Print Center Incubators.

By that I mean, for example, the development of the factory to manufacture the presses, in which printmaking-savvy people would have a new income stream for themselves plus be interacting with other components of the Center. Videos, for one thing, and web maintenance.

In other words, all the elements that I currently take care of by myself with occasional help from my wife and daughter.

I am not forgetting the help I get from my “strategic partners” such as Tom and Margie, Ethan, and Ric. Obviously, they have their own concerns; the print center is not part of their life-plans, not a priority.

Many others have listened to my pitch with interest, and I appreciate their attention. They were—and are—encouraging as far as they have time to be. Most recently, Max, Cory, Keenoy—they all have expressed that there are elements in my plan that are noteworthy.

Yet, when it comes to writing a check for the gift show, I have to realize the truth—I can’t handle it. It is the same as when I planned to go to the Portland show with the Carrack, lay out a similar amount of money—or more—and it meant going deeper in debt with small likelihood that we would do as well as we did in San Francisco, i.e., break-even on costs only, over a span of one year following the event.

The labor was lost—I never earned a cent. I called it an investment in the long term. Three years have passed, and I see no progress, really, except for more brochures, more essays, more small achievements and snapshots. Nothing, however, to indicate that I am going to find those two other people required to make progress toward the printmaking center of my vision.