Just a Heads Up.....

Drowning Creek, BMorg & Burning Man, LLC will be shutting down any auctions for this print on Ebay. Here is an excerpt from a rant Jeff typed yesterday when we found out the prints were being sold. I have edited the original text a wee bit for brevity's sake:

I'm pissed. It came to my attention that several individuals have put the Burning Man prints we sent out free with their orders up on ebay. These are from the artist edition, not the playa edition. It seems the people who attended the Burn and got one on the playa knew the meaning of "gift" and is hanging on to theirs. The artist edition prints are the ones creating the problems, meaning some of the people who received them in orders are flipping them.

I know I have no control over the aftermarket. It often drives the price on prints. I don't necessarily care for secondary market sales, but they are a fact of the collecting market. I accept it, but it doesn't mean I have to like it or tolerate in certain cases.

It's the rock poster business after all, and people have flipped posters since the days of Bill Graham, but I do have control over what goes out in Drowning Creek packages.

No future Burning Man prints will be given away as freebies with orders or in future subscriptions. If you want one, find me on the playa.

I just got off the phone with one of Burning Man's lawyers, who was very nice and had nothing but good things to say about my work and the studio. I will say he was even gracious and hated making the phone call. He was very complimentary of the Burn poster and what I did on the playa, but informed me that they were seeing the artist edition prints showing up on ebay, and the merchandising arm of BMORG was getting pissed that people were ignoring the requests not to sell them. They knew it was not the playa edition, but the one I was giving away to my NON-BURNER customers as an incentive who had no idea what they had in their hands, and more importantly seemingly didn't care, and saw it as an opportunity to make some quick cash. I made a mistake by letting Non-Burners get them as an incentive.. I explained we used about 50 prints as an incentive to raise money for the trip and included them in our yearly subscriptions. He totally understood and didn't rail me about it. He has to protect BM's policy of no merch sales with their logos, but it was still a mistake on my part to use them as an incentive, even if the intentions were honorable. All I could do was apologize to them and say that it would never happen again. It won't. He accepted the apology and once again complimented on the work. He was extremely nice. No threats of lawsuits etc., he was happy we sent them a stack for the Arts foundation. He knew I was trying to do something special for my collectors, he was just disappointed that they were showing up on ebay. He was pissed that NON-BURNERS were selling off their prints as soon as they got them, and so am I.

The little cash we took in on the incentive program actually didn't amount to more than a few hundred dollars, enough for a few tanks of gas. The rest I borrowed. It ran into the thousands of dollars. It was the best money I ever spent. I have no regrets, and will be back there next year. So for those who want a Burning man print from this studio...I'll see you on the playa.

This has made one of the happiest experiences in my life (giving away 1000 BM prints to people who really appreciated it and letting those who couldn't be there get an artist edition print) unpleasant, tarnished it and turned it into an embarassment for me. Thanks, I'll never forget that. In retrospect, we should have spelled out prior to sending them out that none should be sold on ebay. That was our mistake.

In the future:

BMORG, Burning Man LLC, Black Rock Arts Foundation and DCS will be ending every auction that hits ebay with one of my Burn prints. All are fully authorized to do so. No whining or bitching if your auctions get ended. I am VERO verified and will wield the power as I see neccesary.

From now on, should the studio produce anything that has "strings" attached, we will spell it out.