11.18.06
Well we have to start somewhere so here goes.  In the larger scheme of things I am juggling a few different balls.  The largest one is trying to arrange a trip to northern Thailand for next week that I suddenly need to make.  Turns out my sales person at a great ceramics workshop that I collaborate with there had been embezzling money from the company.  Now rest assured, this is a great company, which is why I have been working with them for so long.  So needless to say this was a big surprise.  If we go back in time a number of months to the 5th of July, you will find me sitting in the design room of this little cottage factory in northern Thailand.  Over the next few days the owner, my then sales person and myself are trying to design some cool new ceramics for the August New York show.  Its  a big middle to upper end wholesale accessory and gift show that happens every August and January in Manhattan at the Jacob Javits Center and the piers.  We show there.  In any case, back to July.  After a few days we have designed a nice new group of ceramics.  Great new and inventive glazes and very nice forms.  Most of them are to introduce at the New York show and then have the inventory of those pieces arrive in September in time for shipping to fill the orders after the New York show.  Not only that, but then we would also have inventory here in time for the other big wholesale show that we do in High Point (again twice a year, this one in October and the other in April).  Great planning on my part, so I thought.  The samples of these new pieces arrived in time for the New York show, and they were met with a great response and some good quantities in orders.

    
Some of the new vases we are patiently waiting for delivery on.
 
Now in my defense I had been in contact with my sales person at the factory checking on the progress of the production.  After I get back from the New  York show I dutifully e-mail her to say things went well and I am hoping all is on track.  No reply for a few days.  This is not unusual.  Ironically with the advent of e-mail, most Asian countries that I go to, the people do not respond with the frequency that we do in the west.  It is more of a weeks long frame of mind. Its not necessarily right or wrong, but it is frustrating.  One would have thought that e-mail would have helped communication with far off places like this, but it actually slows things down.  I try a few more times in September, and then resort to calling, which is usually the best way anyhow as there are always language problems with e-mail (which is really my fault for not speaking their language, but again its still frustrating at times - at other times its a great study to see what particular phrase or syntax makes a difference in getting a message across).  So I call.  No she is not there.  I call two days later.  Keep in mind that Thailand is 12 hours ahead, so all of these calls are at midnight.  Then throw into the mix  that at home we had at the time of this a 3 week old baby and a rapidly aging Great Dane, who both at what appeared to be coordinated times, would wake us up every hour, so sleep deprivation was at a peak.  After a week of trying to reach my sales person at midnight and hearing that she is not there, I finally am told that she retired.  I ask them what do you mean she retired (she was 30 something)? The answer then is - she no good, she leave business.  This is unusual for a Thai person to speak so candidly, so obviously something is wrong.  Next question - what do you mean she’s no good?  The answer - she embezzle 500,000 baht from company and get fired.  That roughly comes out to $13,000 and could buy an amazing house where they are in Thailand.  Ok.  So that sucks for them, but selfishly what does that mean to me?  Well turns out that it means all of my production lists, and thus my actual production is not in production, and the lists have disappeared with her.

Its mid September right now and I am expecting  a shipment of roughly 200 pieces from them to fill orders from the New York show that I had promised delivery in early October.  That’s going to be hard to meet seeing as those pieces aren’t even on a production list, let alone actually made, never mind the 6 weeks it takes to get here. I then spend the next two weeks trying to figure out - through another week of midnight phone calls and e-mails - who my new sales person is.  Its now early October.  They finally assign me a new sales person and we manage to get things a little back on track . . so I thought.  So I resend my old orders from July.  They are not able to get them done until late November/early December which means the pieces won’t arrive here until the first few weeks of the new year.  But those invoices that they have sent me of the things that they are now going to be making - the inventory numbers of each vase don’t corresponmd at all to my original invoices from last July, so I have no way of knowing what it is they are actually going to make.  I then send photos of each vase that was meant to be in productin with the new inventory numbers that they have given me that I think are the right numbers beneath each vase.  That gets me an “I understand” on the phone, but no response in e-mail.  So what they are actually making for me right now is sort of foggy at best.  But wait, there’s more!  all of the designed pieces that we had created in July have disappeared into the ether.

Fast forward to after the High Point show and we are now at the end of October, and I have many more orders for these same ceramics from that show, and still none on the way (if even in production).

Fast forward again to mid-November and I am at long last able to talk to the owner - who is very nice and feels terrible about the whole thing.   In all seriousness, I have good faith in her, and this was quite the anomaly, but communication is still very difficult and I have orders that need to be filled and another show in New York coming up in January that needs new product.  Thus the “emergency trip” to northern Thailand that I am now trying to set up for early December to try and get the train back on the track.  The good news is I can sit down with them on this trip and come up with some new designs for this winter and spring, and also try and find a couple other manufacturers to work with.  Although it will be hard to compare any other manufacturer to these guys  - they have the best glazes and design sense that I have found in Thailand, and other than the rogue embezzler, they are quite reliable as far as production schedules and quality goes.  But it would be good not to have all my ceramics in one basket, so I will do a little looking for another company or two this trip.

Its Saturday today, as I am writing all of this, which is always a strange day for us in the shop.  Traffic is always showing up in groups.  There will be no one in the shop for an hour, and then a bunch of people come through, and then nothing again for an hour, and another drove of people.  Strangely enough the largest groups come through between 4 and 5, just at closing time.  Don’t really know why.  I’m actually a fan of having it go that way.  It standard retail psychology - you want a bunch of people in a shop all at once, it gives everyone confidence in being there. Even though people like our place to be an “in the know” shop, they still like having the group support of other people while they are shopping.  Plus you don’t feel like the sales people in the shop have only you to stare at the whole time you are there.

In the design world, we had a client send us photos of this architectural piece (from the top of a doorway), that I found on the south east coast of India that they turned into a great looking headboard. 

Someone else took a beautifully turned wood candle stand  and made it into a great little side table.  Quite frankly I am usually quite skeptical when someone tells me about their arts and crafts projects that they have done.  Usually unless you are the one who made it . . well you get the point.  But Gerry did a great job with it.  It would be something I would be quite happy to sell in the shop.  Next week we are delivering the second portion of furniture to a client’s new home overlooking the river in St Paul.  He got these great clean lined leather and fabric chairs  and the infamous “bouch” sofa (infamous to those who know what it is I  guess),

This is the bouch - looselly interprited stands for a little bit couch a little bit bed . . .bouch (its not French)

and some great furniture pieces including a few wonderful antique Chinese cabinets.  I am hoping he will let us photograph the house so we can post them on line for all to see.  Picture an early century multi gable home with lots of windows and light, beautiful dark cherry floors, minimal art work, nice woodwork, simple furniture accented with only a few well chosen antiques and antique family heirloom Persian rugs. All very simple and clean in a very traditional medium sized house.

Other than all of that, the business has its usual things going on.  We are constantly looking for new furniture lines to carry that are unusual (not in a weird way), or new product to find around the world to import.  I think I have found a great teak furniture manufacturer from Europe that uses only green certified wood (its either plantation harvested or all reclaimed).   They make these great simple yet refined big glass vitrines,coffee tables, dining tables, buffets etc.  I am hoping to start getting small shipments (10-20 pieces) atthe start of next year, and we will see where it goes from there.  Some of thier pieces are right below here.

Photos of the new teak line we are hoping to start importing

The shop looks quite nice right now, a good balance between the things we bring in and the furniture lines we carry.  The planters outside are all done up by these good friends of ours at a place called Tangle Town Gardens (a very cool flower/landscape shop not far from here). The fish in our big fish pot are happy and growing (they spent the first few months hiding under the little pot I put in the bottom of the fish bowl).  Of course the only reason they no longer hide from us is because I took away the automatic feeder, so now we humans here at the shop have become their soul source of food, so they make an appearance each time we show up, ever hopeful for a pellet or two.  Yes we know its not real love- more of a dependancy issue, but from a fish, what more can you ask for.