Exactly - breaks your heart. I made bird window hangers - parrots,
cockatoos and kooabkurras - a friend had a little assembly line going
at one point (but mine were better!) Neither of us could compete in
the markets or gift shops around here - you can't exactly hang a
label on it saying - 'this took two hours to make and it's worth it'.
People were buying really horrid acrylic pseudo-glass imports instead.
As my granny said, 'you'll never go broke underestimating people's
taste' as she sold another plastic bowl of plastic fruit with a sad
and bewildered look on her face.
There's an interesting semantic difference here - round these parts
we talk about leadlight and tiffany but 'stained glass' is strictly
reserved for the skill of assembling panels where the sections have
been hand painted, as in most church work. Those guys are still doing
just fine.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 29/08/2007, at 10:53 PM, Paul Braun wrote:
> My wife and I had a stained glass studio for 10 years. We finally had
> to give it up because we got tired of not being able to pay the
> rent and
> our bills. Near the end, the most common complaint was, "I can buy
> stained glass for my cabinets for less than a quarter of your quote
> from
> the local home improvement store. Why should I pay you?" We couldn't
> get anyone to understand the difference between cheap, mass-produced
> stuff coming from China and Taiwan and custom-designed and crafted
> pieces, made to their specifications. They just didn't care,
> refused to
> be educated, and we finally gave up. When you could buy a lamp for
> $140
> that we couldn't touch for under $350 or $400, we knew it was time to
> get real jobs and close down.
>
> Plus, we were getting burned out from having to do everything that
> came
> in just to make rent. Some people have zero taste, and when you're
> desperate for money, you can't tell them, "No, I won't make it with
> those colors, because it's offensive to me and offensive to nature."
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