So why did it take these artists so long to see the light? These are intelligent people. Are they really so desperate to get into a gallery that they will overlook all these bizarre shenanigans?

Ray Phillips, a Houston artist and owner of a Galveston gallery, says that a work's quality and value can seem enhanced by the mere fact that it hangs in a gallery and not some grotty, ill-lit studio in a shady part of town. Some collectors believe that "If it's not in a gallery and really expensive, then it can't be any good. They will walk in with money and ask the curator, 'What's the coolest thing in here?' and the curator will say, 'This.' And the person will say, 'Okay, I'll take it.'"

While getting swindled is always a massive bummer, Phillips contends it's even worse for artists. "When it comes to art, it's personal," he says. "It's not [just] a commodity as much because you've worked on it for a week or two. You've been through a bunch of emotional stuff with it, so it's usually more important than a bale of hay.

"And when it sells you are excited because that validates what you do. The ultimate validation for an artist is when someone buys your art. And when the gallery doesn't give you your money, all that goes in the toilet. There went your happiness, and in comes the rage."
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In January, Adams and Richards organized a meeting with some of the other artists who are owed money. They found plenty.

There's Mimi Wang. She tells the Press that she sold a few pieces through H Gallery in 2007 and 2008. She got the same treatment Richards did, and Wang's husband persisted in trying to collect. The gallery finally coughed up a check for $3,000. "I was very happy, so I go to the bank, and the check bounced," Wang says, in a faintly Chinese accent. "So that was nice." Eventually, the gallery agreed to pay her back in monthly installments and gave her $300 to start. And, as it turned out, to finish. That's all Wang would ever get.

Ted Ellis, a local artist, wrote via e-mail that he heard "excuse after excuse, until I got tired and felt it was not worth the hassle." Austin artist Sue Rock claims to have been owed money since 2009. "Promises, Lies, refusal to return art. BROKEN PROMISES of money owed. Then, zero response. They are only into ME for about $500 BUT AFTER REPEATED ATTEM's [sic] to get my money and art they will not respond...They are grifting artists that work from the soul and it's a very bad situation."

Following the lead of his friend and studio mate Richards, Jason Ransom also began an association with H Gallery last summer. Through the gallery he made his first-ever sale to a stranger — one of his paintings sold for $1,300, with $1,000 coming to him. He was ecstatic, for a few weeks, anyway.

Then came the excuses. "They said, 'Just give us three more weeks, we're trying to sell stuff to give you your money...Dad's in the hospital,' and on and on. You'd walk away feeling strangely guilty about even bothering them about your own money. But it comes down to this: My painting is hanging in someone's house. They had the money. They spent the money. They got to pay their rent and order their takeout, and the money's not there. They won't give it to me. I am having to sell plasma for bread, and I've got $1,000 right down the street."

And then there's the tangled thicket Adams has been attempting to hack through in seeking repayment of that ten thousand dollars in personal loans. Adams said at the time that he did not particularly need the money right away, so he told the struggling gallery owners that they could pay him back at their earliest convenience. Months stretched into years. Adams's financial situation changed. As a regular volunteer employee of the gallery, he saw that a few good-sized sales had come in. He started pressing for his money. In return, he got what he says is the usual: "Dodges, evasions, promises and ignored."

At last he countered with what he believed was a very generous offer. He told them they could pay him back 1 percent of what they owed every 30 days. "It would cost them $100 a month to keep me on board," he says. "Not a dime." (Bernstein told the Press that Adams's loans were investments in the gallery. Adams furnished the Press with his own canceled checks clearly marked "loan," with the due dates also on the checks.)