I just returned from an art supply shop with the ten canvases for tonight's class, first of four sessions every Wednesday night of this month. I got packs of two 11 x 14 stretched canvases for 5.99 per pack. With the Art Guild sales tax exemption that came to 29.95.

Big savings because we charged the students five bucks each for the canvas! There will be ten students @ $5 each = $50 in canvas fees, so the Guild's profit will be $30.05 on the materials.

The class fee is $40 for members and $50 for non-members and it will average to $45 per student this time, so the fee total will be $450.00. Add the $30.05 to that and the total for the class revenue will be $480.05.

I teach four nights from 6 to 9, and I get $20 per hour. I get no rebates for using my own paints and other materials, which I commonly supply anyway. My total time comes to 12 hours and 12 X $20 = $240.00. I have always taught the four session classes so that my students can have the time and instructional help to get a painting finished.

This class will earn the Art Guild $240.05, not counting the extras if a couple of the students pay the $25 to join the Guild.

This year I will have completed four classes, and as usual, my classes have always generated a cash profit for the Art Guild. One class had 11 students and one only had 8, but the total profit that I will have generated this year for the organization will come to $845.05.

One class that I scheduled and taught last year only got five students, so I waived my pay and taught it anyway. The Guild made $200 for that class.

I have been told that the new board of directors has decided that I should not have classes of four evenings, and that I should limit my classes to one-day Saturday sessions or two evening sessions.

My response to this was that if my class time is limited to 6 or 7 hours the students would not be able to complete a painting and that it takes longer to do a more deliberate artwork.

Their reply was to do it anyway.

I have made money for the guild, so I did the math for them. If I teach a six hour class, the fee would have to be about $25 maximum. That would bring in $250 in revenue. I would be paid $20 X 6 = $120.

The Guild would get $130 but only if we could market the class to ten students willing to pay the $25 for 6 hours.

The response? "But you make too much off the Guild. Two-hundred forty dollars!"

My response? "OK. If you would rather make $130 instead of $240, that's your decision." And at that point I remarked how much I will have made for the Guild this year, the $845.05. Their response was "Yeah, but we ended up paying you more than that."

Then I was told to turn in my keys to the gallery doors. Since I am no longer President or a board member I should not have keys to get in.

That is when it hit me.

This was more than just about the classes. This was some kind of vendetta being worked out, or a signal that I was not welcome.

So I replied that since I had paid to have my two keys made six years ago when I was appointed gallery director, I would gladly turn them over if they rebated what I paid for the key-making.

I know who the instigator is. It is a person who grates on you. This board member has fought me every step of the way as I tried to get the Guild to stay alive, in the black and expand our membership, outreach and build goodwill in the community. This is a person who has told the membership that in the future they will not accept members who won't volunteer for gallery-sitting, manning booths at our fairs, etc. This person also told me that I should not publicize any class until two or three weeks before the class (I do it for at least two months in order to get at least 8 or 10 students!)

Anyway, I am certain that the next step will be to limit me in other ways. The Treasurer told me yesterday when I picked up the tax-exempt forms to buy the canvas that the board has instructed her not to write any checks over $200 without their approval.

So I believe that after my last class in late September I will be told that my pay for the class will not be $240, but will just be two hundred dollars.

I have sniffed at the new art supply shop in town about teaching there. Something may come of that, but at this time I am not sure of it. What I am sure of is that this will be my last class at Tiffin Art Guild.