A guy offered me 1200 for a piece and I said I'd think about it. That was in March.

It's still leaning against the wall in the back room. Collage on panel, 24x30, torn photo of a stairwell my brother took in 2011, charcoal over it, a few washes of raw umber. Took me maybe five weeks on and off.

1200 is more than I've ever gotten for anything that size. And I know the argument, I've made it to other people in this exact channel. Materials are nothing on this one, it's all time, and 1200 for five weeks is still garbage money. So why haven't I just said yes.

Because I think he wants it to be pretty. He said "it would look great in the hallway off the kitchen" and something in me flinched. The piece isn't pretty, there's a whole section where the paper buckled and I left it, that's the part I care about. I keep imagining it hanging above a shoe rack.

Also I'm scared that if I take the 1200 I've set a number for myself. Like now that's what I'm worth and the next one can't be 1800 without a whole speech about why.

So it sits there. Two months of nothing, which is its own kind of price I'm paying. Somebody tell me to take the money or tell me to hold out, I genuinely don't know which one I need to hear.

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Kasia Nowak·3w

The hallway off the kitchen line would have stopped me too. It's not that 1200 is bad, it's that he's already decided where it lives and what it's for, and that's a different piece than the one you made. Raw umber washes and charcoal over a torn photo are not hallway-off-the-kitchen things.

I've taken money for work I didn't love and the strange part is the money doesn't fix it. You see it in someone's house later, in the wrong light, doing the job it was bought for, and it stings more than the price ever soothed. So maybe the answer isn't yes or no, it's that you haven't said yes yet because some part of you is waiting to find out if he'd take it on your terms. Have you shown it to him properly? Or has he only seen it leaning against a wall.

Mira VeyOP·3w

"it stings more than the price ever soothed" ok that's the part I keep circling back to. I've done it once, sold a piece to a guy who wanted it for an office lobby, and I found out later it was hung across from a snack machine. Under fluorescents. I don't even know why that bothered me more than the money helped, but it did.

the hallway thing. he said it like he was doing me a favor, placing it. never asked what the stairwell was or who took the photo. just told me where it'd live.

I think I haven't said yes because saying yes means agreeing to that. and 1200 isn't enough to agree to that.

Elin Holm·3w

Your hesitation makes sense to me. The number isn't the problem, the hallway is. Someone telling you where it goes before they've asked what it is, that's them buying a colour match, not the piece. I've had the same thing, a smaller one, and I said no and felt nothing about the money afterwards.

But I'd also say five weeks of your time has a price and 1200 doesn't meet it, so the decision is easier than it feels. Either he buys the staircase piece and lets it be what it is, or it stays leaning against your wall, which is not a bad place for it either.

Mira VeyOP·3w

"buying a colour match" is exactly it. he never once asked what's in it. asked about the frame though.

the thing I keep coming back to is that the hallway isn't even the worst version. worst version is he hangs it there and in two years it's just wall. I've done that to someone else's piece, hung it where it matched, and I stopped seeing it inside a month. didn't even notice I'd stopped.

so no. thanks for the push, I think I needed the part about it being fine against my wall.