Editors Journal by Bernadette Finnerty

If there's one thing I've learned over the last year and a half, it's that anything can happen. If something can go wrong, it probably will. But most likely, bad things will happen when you're not paying attention.

I am living proof of this. In the last year and a half, our house was burglarized; our sewer pipe, well, exploded; and a tree limb (about 15 inches in diameter) pierced through the back of my car in a small tornado. A few months after that, the radiator in my relatively new car broke, causing me to be without air conditioning in one of the hottest summers I can remember. All of these things were obviously unexpected, but might have been avoided had I been prepared.

For example, I've grown so accustomed to the peace and quiet in my neighborhood, that I forgot to lock one of my front windows. The burglar punched a hole in the screen, opened the window, climbed in, and helped himself to a computer, a VCR, a watch and my diamond earrings.

My husband had asked me at least 20 times not to park my car under that tree, because it's dying. I knew a storm was coming, but I didn't feel like parking across the street. If I had parked across the street, a picture of my car with a tree sticking out of it wouldn't have been on the front page of the local paper the next day.

We knew something was wrong with our sewer pipe when the drains were making loud gurgling noises every time we turned on the faucets. We ignored it because we didn't feel like dealing with it (or spending the $3,000 to dig up the front yard and have the 80-year-old pipe replaced).

And my car radiator, well that was just one of those things ­ bad luck, I guess.

I do have a point here.

There are many perils that craftspeople encounter in this business. You spend a lot of time on the road, sometimes doing untested shows in unfamiliar areas, carrying valuable work and money. We hear many stories of theft, copy artists, people being ripped off by unscrupulous show promoters or gallery owners, or getting burned by sales reps who either don't know the business, or sell so many lines that your work has to compete with them, too. But sometimes artists unwittingly put themselves in danger by not planning ahead or paying attention to warning signs.

Preparation can make you less vulnerable
If you're not constantly aware of what can go wrong, and prepared for the worst, you're vulnerable. Many of the articles in this issue focus on protecting yourself from perils that can happen to you and your business. Protecting yourself from theft and other crimes, finding sales reps you can trust, asking the right questions when choosing shows so you don't wind up with a dud, and filing for copyright protection on your designs are just some of the areas we cover this month.

Each of these articles outlines simple precautionary measures you can take to avoid being victimized. The underlying theme (according to writer Woody Jones, a craft artist, board member of NAIA, and former police officer and private investigator) is: Do your homework, don't be cheap, don't be stupid and don't rush.

Take it from me, being cheap and stupid and rushing and not trusting my instincts got me into some difficult messes last year, and caused a lot of stress.

CODA survey
Next month, as The Crafts Report celebrates 25 years of providing business advice to crafts professionals, we are teaming up with the Craft Organization Directors' Association (CODA) to present the CODA Survey: The Impact of Crafts on our National Economy.

The survey will be attached to the cover of all subscriber copies. It will also be mailed to a separate list of craft artists around the country. If you are a subscriber and happen to be on the list of artists who will receive the survey by mail, just answer the survey once. All surveys are the same and will be returned (postage pre-paid) to the same address.

Please participate. Quantifying the economic impact of crafts on the national economy will have positive effects for everyone.

Bernadette Finnerty is editor of The Crafts Report.

MARCH 2000: TABLE OF CONTENTS