20080906

In the summer of 2006, I was ready to leave for New York City. My last task was a moving sale for my studio. There were a lot of books, furniture, decorative objects and some nice kitchen tools. All of the items I had collected during several trips to other countries. I posted a sign on the wall on the front of my office building: “Moving Sale, #101, 08/15/2006 to 08/31/2006.” Also, I sent e-mails to people whom I had known. I was working on a bit of advertising. For the next two weeks, I took my two dogs with small signs around each dog’s neck whenever I met my friends, clients and acquaintances. Tori was my dachshund and Louis was my cocker spaniel. They looked great. When I was with friends or clients, they would wait for me in front of the cafés so that the signs could be easily noticed. I was practicing promotion. One of my dogs walked around and ate a famous jazz musician’s cheese cake. The jazz musician was one of my clients. We talked about her plans for a dinner show. It seemed to me that I was doing publicity. She noticed the signs around my dogs’ necks. She laughed about it. The effect was public relations. Some neighbors, friends and clients visited my studio. They bought furniture, a group of books and various objects. The effect was a nice sale. However, it turned out that my first sale was not so good. I still had a lot of stuff from the studio in my previous room. But, in spite all of that, it was a great design experience that I had never done before, and now I have only half of them. : )