Art Business Continued

I continued work on my shipping box around other commitments on Thursday, and then finished it today.  With the inner box finished on the first day, the rest was pretty easy- essentially wrapping the first box with an identical piece of cardboard, gluing and taping as I went, and then cutting all the flaps. Plastic sealing tape in key spots was dealt with this morning.  Above, the completed box that can hold two framed supermarket prints.

I figured what would make this easiest for my contact would be if I could just get a prepaid sticker for the return trip, but my shipper thought there would be too many possible complications.  So went with plan B, weigh the box with two framed works in it to find out the fee for shipping that from one point to the other, then put the money in the otherwise empty box, and seal it and send it up to Newark.  Afterwards, I called Steve to let him know it was on the way and what to expect.

So how did this compare to the alternative of going to Newark myself and picking it up?  Assuming no complications, it would take three to four hours to make the round trip.  Somewhere around $30 for a round trip train ticket if I went that way, and about the same in gas, tolls, and parking fees if I took my car.  The box took about 5 hours of my time total over the three days, and other than a negligible amount of glue and tape, used just stuff I had in stock.  And as for complications, yesterday I caught a bit of the noon news, where there were covering a car chase that had left some destruction and a lot of blocked off streets in Newark, centered on University and Market.  That happens to be about a block from the gallery, which would have created all kinds of crazy traffic, and it's bad enough when nothing is going on.  Receiving my art in a timely and secure fashion will be the final test of how well the shipping worked, but so far that seems to have been the better call.