Charged a couple $2,800 for a commissioned piece. Found out later they flipped it for $9,000 six months later.
That one stung. Not because I'm entitled to their profit, but because it made me realize how badly I'm underpricing my own work. I did the math on my hours after I found out and I made about $14 an hour on that piece. Fourteen dollars. For thirty years of knowing how to make something that holds its weight and doesn't fall apart.
I don't blame them. They saw the value. The problem is I didn't.
Still haven't raised my prices to where they should be. Working on it. But that gap between what I charge and what something's worth keeps me up some nights.
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That math hurts to read. It's not even about the flipping, it's the $14/hour after thirty years. That's the part that stays with you.
I've never had it happen quite like that, but I've sold prints for a fraction of what they ended up meaning to people, and I know that quiet feeling of having undervalued not just the piece but the whole current underneath it, the years of learning the light, the failed exposures, the salt drying on the paper.
I hope you get there with the prices. Not because of what someone else might resell for, but because the work itself deserves to be met at its real weight. And so do you.
Yeah. The $14 an hour is what sticks. Not the resale, not the couple who did it. Just the math of what I decided my own time was worth.
You're right about the years underneath it too. All those early pieces I ruined learning how to balance a weld. The stone I wasted. Nobody pays you back for that.
Appreciate you saying it straight.