“flip flop,” said the cat.

I was just about to write a glowing review of the 4Cats Art Studio in Duncan.

Then I learned the studio is no more.

Then I learned that 4Cats is a franchise, and the parent company has seen some controversy.

Well, gee whiz. Time to change my angle — back to the mire. Home sweet home.

Nothing can ever be good.

Here’s how I wound up here. Years ago, I was walking in Duncan when I saw a fantastic piece of colourful abstract art in the window of a shop. I went in the shop and asked how much the painting was. The woman said it wasn’t for sale, it was painted by a 5-yr old at a birthday party or something like that, and it was just on display until the paint dried and the kid came to pick it up. I was disappointed I couldn’t get my filthy meat hooks on the painting but I was glad that kids did such a creative, artistic thing for fun. What a great experience for them. So I talked to the woman for a little bit about the shop and what they do, and was really impressed. I’ve always felt that there is consistently too much emphasis on sports and not enough on art in my community (and virtually every other rural community) so this was a breath of fresh air.

Fast forward to today, when I was dropping off some donations at the Salvation Army. A woman was dropping off some donations as well, including a giant, colourful, bold abstract painting. I said, “I like the painting.” She said, “do you want it?” I said, “YES,” wide-eyed and salivating, tongue lolling about, nervously clicking my previously mentioned filthy meat hooks together. The woman explained her daughter had made it at the 4Cats Art Studio in Duncan but no longer wanted it. I shouted, “isn’t that something” over my shoulder as I scuttled back to my lair, clutching my newfound treasure. I got home and promptly hung the painting right in the middle of the living room.

I’m so pleased with the painting and the serendipity of the whole situation that I started marveling once again at how great our community’s little 4Cats studio is. I decided I wanted to give props to them here so I started looking up their info online. I was surprised to learn that 4Cats Art Studios are a franchise, and that all of the webpages specific to the Duncan studio were gone. Even the phone # I found for them wouldn’t even ring.

I did some further searching and found that in 2014, 11 franchise owners launched legal action against the head office, ‘4CE,’ over a misrepresentation of profitability of the franchises. I couldn’t find the results of those lawsuits but looking at the 4Cats website, it appears they have 44 locations throughout Canada. Surely the 4Cats franchise deal can’t be that bad if all these other studios are still operating four years later. I mean, I’m bummed to learn that 4Cats is a chain simply because I would have preferred it if it was something small and unique to Duncan, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering if the franchisee’s who had trouble with the head office were simply an unhappy minority.

Then again, 11 unhappy franchisees to 44 (assumedly) happy ones is a pretty high ratio of discontent. Maybe there is something to all of this.

So really, who knows what to think about it? The whole situation seems fraught with unanswered questions and dubious actions on both sides — are the franchisors greedy twats? Are the franchisees inept artsy types who can’t run a business effectively? When it comes to stories like this, I usually find both sides are guilty of doing some really dumb stuff. I end up thinking, “ack, you’re all fucked. You dummies deserve each other.”

Not even I like watching two angry turds yell and point their fingers at each other.

And that’s how my blog post that started out about how happy I was with the 4Cats Art Studio in Duncan turned into just another slog about how shitty people are.

On that note, why doesn’t someone around here start their own version of a 4Cats studio?