Sam Wahnon, aka Sam Hill and his partner Mike Scuitto, entered a gentlemen's agreement with me "O" -a graphic artist. The agreement, in which I reserved all rights, was essentially a marketing/distribution agreement for my art.
I was given a small advance of 2k over a 4 month period and aggressively discouraged from making money outside the informal partnership. Told my job was to make art, not money and to count on advances against what was to be $5 per print after costs. 5000 prints of my work were purchased from an offset lithographer of which I advanced them 4000 (2000 each of "democracy" and "I am not a perfect man") at cost, at their expense. Additionally I provided 400 signed copies of untitled 3000 faces at my expense.
Sam Wahnon, who claimed to be a marketing expert and Mike Sciutto a warehouse operator, are partners in lobster tank service company "Seven Seas Services" that sells unsuspecting clients common sense tank maintenance information on the condition an overpriced 3 month supply kit is purchased. It was with this "expertise" they proceeded to fraudulently market my work.
Sam and Mike have no understanding of "truth in advertising" When I complained to them my reputation would be compromised by deceptive marketing they refused to remove the deceptive material facts from the websites. I sent a cease and desist without effect and am now forced to litigate. My prints are not "limited" or "final editions" They are not printed on "100% recycled paper" Sam and Mike believe, from their experience, misleading people is key to successful marketing. It should be assumed any prints sold by historyimagined.com, or myobamprint.com as "signed by artist" are not signed and that all material facts are misrepresented.
When, as part of Sam's "marketing" of my art, the website historyimagined.com (a name I conceived) was commisioned, Sam's incoherent copy was clearly an issue. I was asked to write a personal statement, a welcome to the site, and was asked to describe the prints. I did so with all rights reserved and on the condition my writing not be edited. Of course it was; my welcome, written in first person was rewritten by Mike Sciutto. My descriptions of the prints, also written in first person, was attributed to the "curator" rather than me. I demanded they remove all unauthorized derivatives of my text without result. Their commitment to fraud rules supreme. Worst mistake I ever made as an artist.
If you are directed to any of their sites to make a purchase of my art, understand they are offering my work fraudulently and are infringing on my copyrights. My new work will be available soon, directly from me -the artist, at dominantprimate.com and is currently available at http://freelancepainter.com/, http://O. Imagekind.com/, Metaphorchid. Etsy.com, http://www.cafepress.com/dominantprimate
These incompetent, unscrupulous crooks are claiming the site will feature other "culturally relevant artists" Artists beware, buyer beware. Consider them extremely hostile to both creative rights and consumer rights. -o
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