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From Bill Dodd

Apart from the routine of trading and performance reviews, accounts and taxation and such things, I am currently advising a number of clients on aspects of international trading.  One client has been successful in selling work to the Chinese Government for an exhibition next year and I have handled all the documentation and financial aspects; in another case I am assisting agents for the Chinese Government in procurement of sculpture for the same exhibition next year and acting as their agent in procuring the work of a very well known European kinetic artist; in another case I am working with a  very well known UK botanical artist, and handling all the contractual and financial arrangements, to purchase and import a printing press from Scandinavia.  Andy and I are discussing purposefully expanding this side of our business where we have a lot of skills and worldwide knowledge and experience and not leaving it so much to joyous opportunity!

Summer has been good dodging the raindrops.  Abandoned another camping trip in Cornwall in favour of less wet accommodation and had a fulfilling time visiting the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan as well as lots of galleries and music venues.  I did feel that the Eden Project had not envolved perceptively in the year between my visits but I know that Tim Smit (like rust) never sleeps and there will be a huge amount going on the background that is yet to appear. Paulo Nutini 'appeared' and put smiles in peoples' faces during the pouring rain!

Took a detour to Padstow to try the much vaunted Rick Stein fish and chips - without appearing immodest, there's better stuff coming out of my garden frier on a regular basis.  Move over Rick, the pressure's mounting!  And, you don't have to queue in my garden!

From Andy Christian

I have been really busy working on our client business reviews. One of the things that keep on coming up is how we underuse our databases. Artists, designers and makers don’t usually have huge lists of people who have purchased from them but they are generally slow to keep these folk up to date with their latest work and activities. It is such a low cost exercise to keep these people amongst the active collectors of their work. They need culturing and with personal purchases they feel committed to the artists and makers and feel a kinship with them.
 
Apart from business reviews/reports and on call support I am continuing to write pieces for Earthmarque, Ceramic Review, Resurgence and Ceramics; Art and Perception. The CR piece that’s about to come out is on Tim Andrews. Ceramic Review has a lively new editor, Bonnie Kemske.  The next Resurgence piece is on Gauguin which coincides with the huge London exhibition. Eathmarque have a big online sale of contemporary studio ceramics this autumn. Online sales of specialist collector’s items seem to be becoming a successful method of selling work.
 
I caught the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. The pieces that have continued to haunt me were by Bill Viola who had a compelling black and white video there and long streetscape photographs by David Hockney who has once again turned to the camera. He has such a capacity to reveal the extraordinary in the apparently ordinary.
 
Outside my office window the cider apples are ripening as are the sloes. A persistent young buzzard has been clinging to the top of one of the apple trees and mewling to be fed. It’s beginning to give up and hunt for itself as its parents are ignoring it.
 
Businesses we work with seem to be surviving the pressures thus far but retailers are feeling the pinch and gallery sales do seem to be reflecting this as well. My friends in the auction business tell me that sales are good but that they are getting fewer things to sell. People are hanging on to good items which are a much better bet than investing cash.