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THE ART “ If it doesn’t kill you,

OF GIVING it will make you stronger.”

October Gallery has always supported the
communities it serves. Over a span of twenty years,
around $900. Tere were only two
we have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars
conditions for getting the art at this
in art, services and other gifts. Tis is no small
greatly discounted price. She had to pay
feat considering we are a small gallery. Tere are From left to right: Cassandra Lockerman Robinson, Carter Borden, Oliver cash and she had to buy that weekend.
community groups and organizations that, like Franklin and Tina Tiller at an October Gallery art auction.
clockwork each year, request from us a donation Mercer quickly framed the art using a
of art, which they then use for a rafe or a door prize black metal frame, put it in the car and

so as to promote a cause. Other benefciaries include drove 144 miles to Washington, DC to
politicians, civic leaders, heads of corporations, and other deliver it on Saturday. When he arrived,
individuals to whom we give original art (valued in the the lady indicated that the frame color
thousands of dollars) in an efort to promote the art and was wrong. She said she had specifcally

the artists. October Gallery has also donated cash to a requested that the metal frame be gold,
number of groups. We believe our type of gifts enable the not black. As Mercer looked around
public to make a “conscience connection” to Black art. her home, he saw that all of her art
We understand that if we want people to was framed in gold. Tough he pled

consider making art a part of their daily lives, we have with her to take the art as it was, she
Keepin’ the Faith by Andrew Turner.
to get the art “in their faces.” October Gallery gives in persisted. Mercer realized that in his rush to make the
both good and lean years. Speaking of the phone bill, many years ago the sale, he had perhaps forgotten her request regarding the
telephone company called to notify us that they would frame. To make matters worse, the client told him that
We call the good years “autumn gold” (the
Tina Tiller (standing) at an October Gallery art auction: disconnect our service if we did not pay the phone bill she was going out of town Sunday morning, and that
month of October being in autumn). Tese are “Going! Going! Gone!”
frst thing Monday morning. We had postponed the if he wanted to close the deal, the art had to be back
the years that profts are high and expenses are low.
paying of this bill for some time, and now we realized in Washington, correctly framed, by Saturday evening.

we were out of options as far as the telephone company So Mercer put the art back in the car, returned to
Te lean years we like to call “the dark side of autumn.”
was concerned. Mercer called a client in Washington, Philadelphia, reframed the art in gold and took it back
Tese are the years when just paying the phone bill is
DC who had expressed interest in the Andrew Turner to Washington.
a hurdle.
serigraph “Keepin’ the Faith” some months earlier. Needless to say, he closed the deal and the phone bill was
A company should not We had tried to contact this lady on several occasions paid on Monday. As the old folks used to say, “If it doesn’t

exist just for proft. with little success, but we fnally made contact on Friday, kill you, it will make you stronger.” Even in challenging

Yet proft is essential the Friday before the Monday when the phone was to times like those we just described, we continued our
practice of giving. As the Sinatra song goes, “Even when
be disconnected. Mercer convinced her to purchase
if it is to do good the Turner serigraph at a discounted price of $400 ($9 my chips were low, I found some for giving.”
things in the community. more than the amount of the phone bill). At that time

No margin! No mission! My man extraordinaire, Horace Wright at an October Gallery art the retail value of the serigraph framed was somewhere
auction.
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