Crescent Moon Rising had been for sale for about 7 years, and was displayed in Puyallup and Wenatchee in their yearly programs. One city said they wanted to buy it but could never come up with the amount that I was asking. I felt that the original price of $10,000 was a very fair price for the eight months that it took me to make it. I had lowered the price to $6000 for that city and they had it in their art on the street program for 2 years. I finally decided that they were not interested so I brought it home with my nose a bit out of joint and a lot of annoyance.
On that particular day, I sat down at the computer and lo and behold, there was a call to artists from Oregon City, Oregon. They were looking to buy 4 sculptures and they had $20,000 to spend on the four. I told myself, they wouldn’t be interested in my sculpture because I had put the price back up to $10,000. $10,000 would be half of their budget. They wanted a photo, not a slide so it wouldn’t be that difficult to do.
I found myself thinking about the scripture that says that a man/woman is often not recognized in his/her own town and thought, in a moment of courage, “why not?” Then I broke my cardinal rule. I wrote a schmaltzy letter. I had heard someone say that this was really important. I was so annoyed at the past response so I sat down and told them that I was a professional and that my sculpture would bring a bit of nature to their city. I admit to writing a suck up letter, figuring it wouldn’t work and they would never meet me. So I sent off my envelope with my resume, letter, photo, etc.
Imagine my shock when about a month letter, I opened an email saying that they wanted my sculpture.
Two days later, after I had finally accepted that it was real, I received another email from them saying that something had come up with the city engineering and they would let us know if they were going ahead with the purchases. Being a realistic person, I figured that if they cut back the program, my piece, being the most expensive of the lot, would be the first to go.
After a month of not knowing, they emailed me to bring down the sculpture and it was installed in the historic part of Oregon City, in front of the fire station. My Crescent Moon Rising was in the city where the Oregon Trail terminated and pioneers ended up settling. So in the end, I got the price that I wanted and sold my first large sculpture.
I think I am going to start answering more emails from afar. I love to drive. I think that if you are from out of state, your sculpture gets more attention. Crescent Moon Rising is about five feet tall, and made of Colorado Yule marble. The crescent moon is lying down and there are cattails winding up one side and around to meet stalks of wheat on the other side. It is very organic looking.
