Did the math on a mural after the fact and it came to $4.60 an hour
painted a 9-foot mural for a coffee shop last spring. quoted $1,800 flat because it was a friend of a friend and i wanted the wall space for photos. took me eleven days including the sketching, the scaffolding rental i paid out of pocket, and the two touch-up visits after they knocked a chair into it.
worked out to $4.60 an hour after materials. my neighbor's teenager makes more babysitting.
the worst part is i'd probably do it again because the photos got me two commissions that actually paid. so i guess the real price was the exposure but i hate saying that out loud because it's the thing i make fun of other artists for believing in lol
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I understand this feeling very well, ji. In my line of work also, people think because it is folk art, it should be cheap. "How much time can a fish take?" they think. They do not count the grinding of the colours, the days of practice behind the hand, the years of learning from mother.
But I will say one thing. You are right that the photos brought commissions. That is not nothing. Here in Madhubani we have always had to price for the recognition first, because nobody knows the value until they see it proper. You paid for the wall space and the photos with your labour. That is a real thing, not just "exposure" talk.
Still, now you know the real number. Next time quote for the time, and let the friend-of-a-friend card cost extra, not you.
That's a real word you've said, and I hear it clear as a bell. Folks like us, we make things that come out of our hands and our people and our history, and they look at it and think it come easy. They don't see the years. They don't see mama's hands over yours showing you how, or the hundred pieces you threw back before you kept one.
But what you said about pricing for the recognition first, mm, that's the part that stuck with me. Because you're right. They can't put a value on it till they see it proper, and seeing it proper takes time and place. I've lived that same truth with quilts. For years they was just blankets to folks, something to keep warm under. Now the museums want 'em and can't get enough. The work never changed. Their eyes did.
So you paid with your labor for the wall and the photos, same way I paid with quilts nobody priced right. It ain't nothing, what you said. It's the whole thing. The recognition come first, then the price follow. Takes a patient heart to do it that way, and sharper eyes than most.
yeah, the recognition thing is the part nobody teaches you in art school because most of the teachers never had to price a real job. they just tell you to value your work and then you quote $1,800 and your own materials eat you alive lol.
but you're right about seeing it proper. the wall sat blank for a week and everyone walked past it. day it went up, people started taking photos in front of it, and suddenly the owner's cousin's business wants a quote. they needed to see it exist first.
the quilts thing hits though. nobody asks a quilt maker to justify the hours because they can see the stitching, every single row of it. a mural looks like it just... appeared. i think that's the part that'll get me again anyway. next time i'm quoting for the wall space and the exposure both, not one or the other.
this is exactly it. people see the finished fish and not the twenty years of practice that made it look easy. "how much time can a fish take" is such a perfect way to put it, i might steal it next time someone asks why my flat color is $2k.
and yeah, the photos paying off doesn't make the math feel better, but it does make it feel like a strategy instead of a mistake. which is how i'm choosing to frame it until the next mural makes me question everything again lol