Tackiness Among the Wax

Walnut Creek is a city of 65,384 about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco. The median household income is $106,122. As of July 2006, the average price of a detached single-family home was $857,136. In the 2000 census, 83.1% of the residents identified as White, 1.1% Black.

The city's Bedford Gallery, supported by taxpayers and presumably charged with cultural enrichment of the community, is currently hosting a juried show of works made primarily of wax. It cost $35 for artists to submit images for judging. That figure is above the national average, but not outrageous. What is different and new and outrageous is this:

The gallery charged people $5 to attend the opening, which was last night, May 6. Artists who have work in the show having paid a $35 submission fee and sometimes hundreds of dollars in crating and shipping), however, were treated with great magnanimity: they got in free. Not only that, they were allowed to bring one guest without charge. Isn't that nice? Two, guests, well, that is $5 and three is $10, and if you invited your collectors and friends and relatives and 15 showed up to support you, the Bedford Gallery benefited $75 from them.And the friends and relatives and collectors will forever remember that opening and the Bedford Gallery and you.

I get to see perhaps 50 invitations a month and have seen thousands during my lifetime. This is the first time I have seen a fee charged for an opening. Have you ever? I mean, have you ever!