Reincarnations.comFun Painted Furniture & Other Artistic Creations for Fun People!

I recently found out that people are doing business under the name of ‘Reincarnations’, a clear violation of my intellectual property rights. One person on Etsy even went so far as to use a variation of our ‘fun functional art for fun people’ slogan as a tag-line for her own business, labeling herself as ‘Reincarnations FUNctional Art’.
As most of us know, this is a violation of copyright. I have been in business with this name since 1985, and a search of the internet wayback machine will show that my website has been active since at least 1999.
Folks, just because you like the name, doesn’t give you the right to use it. Just because I did not buy up every possible misspelling of the name does not mean it is open season, either. I may be an artist, but I won’t hesitate to use any and all legal means at my disposal to protect my intellectual property. The offenders have been contacted, and now we’ll have to see just how far I have to go to protect my business and career.
I urge those who like our work, and who understand the concept of IP law, to resist supporting these impostors, and, if possible, to write Etsy and have those accounts suspended. I feel the need to state that these people are NOT in any way connected or affiliated with me or my company. There is only one true Reincarnations, and it is me.

~Namaste

We recently completed a commission for one of our favorite clients, a birthday chair for their grandchildren. We had a limited delivery window in order for the client to see the chair, and upon learning that UPS could not guarantee delivery by that date, we decided to hand deliver the piece, a tropical reef armchair, to the family in CT.
So, we set out at 4 a.m. to make the 9+ hour drive each way. Upon the way, we discovered an unusual fact: the further north we went, the more rude and terrible the drivers became. We love you America, but a LOT of you have NO idea how to drive.
In the end, we were up for 21 1/2 hours, including a strange Googlemaps mishap that allowed us to enter a wrinkle in the Space/Time continuum that somehow place us about 6 miles north of the spot in which we exited the southbound lane, but the chair made it in time. This is just one example of how far the artists of Reincarnations go to satisfy their clients.

The happy clients with the grandson on the tropical reef chair

Just a reminder to our clients: the deadline for ordering painted furniture for the Holiday season is rapidly approaching. We cannot guarantee completion/delivery for orders placed after November 15th, so order now!

~Namaste

Here is the final stages of our commissioned scenic woodland meadow chair, showing the painted seat details.

Our Woodland Meadow chair – showing the details on the legs.

We’ve been very busy at the studio, so we have fallen a bit behind on our postings, but we’re catching up, slowly but surely!
Here’s another picture of our Woodland Meadow chair being painted on a colonial chair. Enjoy!

~Namaste

Our Scenic Woodland Chair in progress.

Progress photos from our Woodland Meadow Chair – painted on a colonial style chair.

I’ve begun the long-overdue site renovation; there will be new pages coming, new artwork, and all sorts of new eye-candy for our visitors. Not all sections of the site have been completed, and it will be some time before all the pages are complete, so please bear with us. Many of the pages have been re-written from scratch to reflect the changing economy and marketplace. I’ve expanded the shipping information page, to give our clients a more accurate view of what to expect in terms of shipping charges, as well as updating the site to a more pleasing format.
We will also begin offering some new items soon in the form of whimsical mirrors and other decor items, so the navigation bar has been updated to reflect these changes as well. We hope you like our new look as we head into the 2011 fall/winter holiday season and beyond.

~Namaste

MYTH: You have such an easy job!

FACT: There is nothing easy about it. Besides the obvious amount of talent it takes to produce work of a professional caliber, there is an enormous amount of pressure inherent in the job, as well a large number of secondary skills one must possess in order to do what we do. Our work is not a hobby, it is a business, and that includes having to do all the things any retail business must do in order to remain in business, from accounting, to purchasing, to packing and shipping. We don’t employ scores of employees, nor do we work out of a block-sized warehouse; we are two people doing the work of many, and that is simply NOT easy. In short, we work our butts off, and go above and beyond the call of duty to provide our customers the best quality work.

MYTH: Painted furniture is overpriced.

FACT: Would you enjoy being asked to work for pennies an hour, for talents and skills you’ve worked for years to hone and perfect? Because we are often asked to do exactly that. A typical painted chair takes a minimum of 60 hours of our time to complete. A painted dresser can take upwards of 100 hours to paint, not to mention the time it takes us to build those pieces we create in our studio. Our work day is typically 10-12 hours long, 7 days a week. This means we earn less than minimum wage, for artwork that lasts for generations. On top of this, we do not get paid for packing the furniture, or for any of the other tasks related to our business. Add those hours into the equation, and the result is that we work longer and harder for less money than most in this country are willing to accept these days. I’d also like to point out that furniture sold through galleries are often marked up 100%, which means that artwork bought from them is double the price we would charge.

MYTH: Anyone can do what you do.

FACT: Unlike most professions, which are a matter of learning a trade through mere study, art is just that: ART. It takes talent. A person can take all the art courses in the world, but it does not make them an artist; art produced without that magic ingredient is soulless, and might as well have been produced by a machine.

I know this article may strike a few the wrong way, but I have lost count of the number and ways we have been insulted, both deliberately and inadvertently, in the course of our artistic journey. We constantly strive to give the highest quality customer service to our clients and potential clients, and very often are forced to endure criticism and harsh comments from those unaware of just how hard it is to do what we do.