Losing It

A cautionary tale.

When the MacKenzie-Childs house went up for sale some years ago, I nearly went demented trying to figure out how to come up with the money to buy it.

Since I made almost nothing that year (very bad year,) needless to say I didn't get the house. But I did waste a few bucks on lotto tickets in the hopes of getting the whackadoo wonder and all the incredible furniture inside.

I could not understand why the owners would sell what was to me an amazing piece of outsider art, a home they obviously loved. Offered at $1.1 million, it sold for $595,000. Considering the size of the property, the beautiful, restored condition of the house, studio, and carriage house, as well as the amazing gardens and one-of-a-kind furniture, well it all made for a jaw-dropping bargain.

As ridiculous as it seems, when that house sold - and not to me - I actually cried. 

This is what I get for going into comics instead of real estate. Hi Ho. 

All I could think about was that wonderful studio and having lots of artists out there for retreats to talk together and laugh and make glorious things.

Anyway...

MacKenzie-Childs is the name of the design/home decor duo of Richard and Victoria MacKenzie-Childs. Their Mad Hatter Tea Party aesthetic is popular at tony high end department stores with ladies who like checked patterns.

And so I do.

Real estate listings stated that whoever bought the house would get a free dinner and tour with MacKenzie-Childs in their new home, which is a ferry off Staten Island.

A ferry?

Yeah, here it is. You can rent it as a B&B. 

The ramshackle ferry looked like something of a comedown after the beautiful country home they left behind, and at first I just assumed that Victoria and Richard wanted a life of adventure with fewer material goods to burden them in their golden years.

They still live on the ferry to this day after an unsuccessful attempt to sell it a few years ago.

What has happened to Victoria and Richard is a scary tale for creative people.

The MacKenzie-Childs duo that gave birth to the brand is no longer the brand. MacKenzie-Childs corporation still has a big website, still sells designer goods that look almost exactly like the stuff Victoria used to make. The corporation even has a blog where the new owners write about their farmhouse office and legacy of creativity. But it's a legacy that was not formed by the people who now work there.

Victoria and Richard were forced out of their own company.

The eclectic creators had financial issues as their line expanded and contracted, and their company was taken over in a bankruptcy. Victoria and Richard lost their positions at the company, and the corporation, Pleasant Rowland, the makers of the American Dolls products, later sued Victoria and Richard for trademark infringement when they decided to go back into business as designers again.

This is hardball. 

Unfortunately for Victoria and Richard they lost the lawsuit as the trademarks, which included their names, were part of the bankruptcy sale proceedings. 

They are permitted to continue to make art and do business using their first names, and you can see their work at the Victoria and Richard Emprise website. But Victoria and Richard's web presence is drowned by the dominance of the corporate site, as doubtless, shoppers have no idea what happened to the people who created the line, and probably don't care.

The cost of the case, and the inability to revamp their brand in a market where they are in direct competition with their own style (that now pretty much belongs to someone else,) has taken its toll.

I am acquainted with Victoria, though I doubt she really remembers me. We were friends on Facebook for awhile, and I've been following her kooky Youtube videos about life on the ferry.

I was stunned to see that they now have a very modest Patreon where they are trying to raise money to do more work on the ferry and make videos about their life there.

They have a handful of patrons. One of them is me.

I've spent my entire adult life still kinda paranoid about the time an early publisher tried to claim rights to all of my work on my space opera graphic novel series A Distant Soil, something they had no legal right to do. They still lie about what they did, but whatever. I have all the original documents and so do lots of other people, who know better because they know what those papers say.

Regardless, I never quite got over the trauma, and while I know this is a rare circumstance - even though every beginner seems to be absolutely certain publishers are out to steal their stuff - a client trying to steal your stuff almost never really happens in a big way.

But when it does happen, boy howdy.

Victoria and Richard made some horrible business deals. I didn't, I was just a teenager who didn't have the money to fight predators.

But no matter how it happened, losing your art is just terrifying. Victoria and Richard not only lost their art, home, and legacy, they now have to watch while other people carry on without them as if they never existed. 

It's just plain cruel.

Victoria is about as sunny a personality who ever existed on this planet, and I don't know how she does it.

They are not the only creators who have been forced to give up using their own names as their brand, but it's a pretty rough fall from having a multi-million dollar company, a gorgeous country estate, and an internationally successful design firm with products sold on Fifth Avenue to having a Patreon with 58 patrons.

Cautionary tale. 

Hold on to your trademarks, kids.