Getting gaslit by an artist
First off, I realize that title is quite the title. Maybe I wanted to make sure you read this.. sue me. No, but seriously, before I get into this, I want to make it clear why I'm writing this. Starting a small business comes with a ton of twist and turns. Some of it good, a lot of it "bad". If I only wrote about the good, things would seem pretty boring. I want to be transparent and give people true insight into the stuff you run into starting a business. Stories like this exemplify having to "figure it out" and are what I think people should talk and share more about. It's what's interesting about starting a business and if I don't share these stories then I'm leaving out 80% of what's worth sharing.
I should also clarify, given I’ve shared the current artwork, that the artist I ended up working with, @collierbarksdalecreative, is not the same artist. I reached out to Collier after this whole ordeal and I am so appreciative of her because she was the ultimate professional and is extremely talented. This is what she created if you haven’t already seen it.
Before I get into that story - I made a video about it, but I haven’t written any blog about New York at Rest and the inspiration behind it. The original inspiration came from another clothing company that had a spin off to the main brand that was rooted in nostalgia and the appreciation for the city he lived in and told a story when you wore it. I wanted to create something similar and it was really just an outcome of a shower thought that New York at Rest was created.
In thinking about what I love about the city, it was the balance of finding pockets of peace in the middle of the hustle of the city that allows you to love and appreciate the energy. I then wanted to pull in two additional odes to the city; the name is a somewhat juxtaposing reference to the expression “New York never sleeps” and the design is inspired by The New Yorker magazine covers. From there, "New York at Rest" was born.
Now, back to being gaslit... Originally, I had reached out to another artist who I will keep anonymous. His work is amazing (and still is) and I was very excited when he agreed to this as I wasn’t sure if it was against some artist code or what not. Things started smoothly. He was a little caught up when I first reached out, but we spoke a bit and I put together a thorough proposal for him, which he agreed to. This was about mid-March and, wanting to give him a reasonable amount of time to complete it, we agreed to April 7th as the due date so that he would have plenty of time. One thing I clarified from the beginning was that I only wanted him to agree to the proposal if he was comfortable with the timing. Timing is everything when creating clothes and working with manufacturers and the last thing I wanted was to be annoying him with follow ups or asking him to complete something in a time frame that wasn’t feasible.
As I mentioned previously, we agreed to this proposal about mid-March. See below how it unfolded and pay special attention to the dates. I'm not sharing whole message thread as that would be too long, but this should reveal enough to understand. Essentially each screenshot starts with a message from me because I would give a few days between the newly promised ETA and not hearing anything after that ETA came and went.
Luckily after realizing it wasn't going to work out, I remembered I knew another amazing artist in Collier. However, this did end up pushing everything back about two months and definitely taught me a lesson about starting things even earlier to allow for delays. Nonetheless, it all worked out and, again, the reason I’m sharing this story is more so to give people insight into the unique and unforeseeable challenges you run into starting a business. Things you could never imagine would happen or would be a part of the journey. Every small business has a plethora of similar unique stories where they had to overcome curveballs and just find a way. At the end of the day, those are the stories that you remember; not the times it all went perfectly. This artist is still an amazing artist and individual. This is just a chance to laugh at what happened.
