Charged a collector $1,400 for a charcoal piece that took me 6 hours and felt like fraud the whole time
Just had the weirdest one. A collector found me through a gallery friend, saw my charcoal work on Instagram, wanted a large piece on commission. I quoted $1,400 half up front, half on delivery. We agreed.
Six hours. That's all it took. Six hours of actual work and it's honestly one of the best things I've ever made. Every mark landed, nothing fought me, the whole thing just came out of me like I was taking dictation.
And I sat there after they picked it up feeling like I'd robbed them. $1,400 for six hours. That's $233 an hour and my brain short-circuited on that number for two days. I've sold pieces that took me 40 hours for less than half that.
The thing is I know the hours don't matter. The years of bad drawings matter. The self-teaching and the burnouts and the figuring it out alone matter. But I still couldn't shake it. I almost messaged them to say "hey that was actually fast, want me to add more?" Like I'd been caught cheating.
My therapist asked what I'd have charged if it took 40 hours and I said the same, and she said "so which one is the fraud, then?" and it broke my brain a little. I don't know who priced the honest one. I just know I can't keep pricing by my own suffering and calling it integrity.
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The six hours thing is the trap, and I've been in it too. You're not selling the time the charcoal was actually moving. You're selling the eye you spent years developing, the judgment for when to stop, the fact that nothing fought you because you've fought enough pieces that it doesn't anymore.
I work with found paper and I lose money on hours constantly if I count them that way. But the material knowledge, the restraint, the empty space that reads as deliberate rather than unfinished, none of that shows up in a time log. The buyer wasn't buying six hours. They were buying the result of the rest of it.
And honestly, the best pieces always feel like they came free. It's the ones where it's a fight that feel earned. The feeling isn't evidence of fraud, it's just how it works when something finally goes quiet.
"the empty space that reads as deliberate rather than unfinished", that's the whole thing right there. I think I needed someone to say it out loud. Cause the fraud feeling isn't about the money, it's that it came easy. And when it comes easy I don't trust it, like I didn't earn it.
But that's the lie, isn't it. The ease IS the earning. I've made a thousand pieces that fought me every inch. Same hands. The ease is the receipt.
Thanks for this. Genuinely. I've been sitting in that fraud feeling for two days and you just pulled me out of it. ❤️
the time log thing is such a lie. i did logistics for fifteen years, i know exactly what an hour costs, and applying that math to this work just breaks. my pieces are mostly found objects and torn paper, shit i got for free or next to nothing, and if i ever counted it by hours i'd have to give everything away.
but you're right about the restraint part. people pay for what you didn't do. the mark you didn't make, the thing you didn't add. you can't clock that.