Ever take a commission from a gallery that tried to cheap you on fabrication?

First gallery I ever showed with tried to talk me into cutting the steel myself and eating the cost. Said it was "part of the process." I told them no. The material, the labor, that's my job and my money. They backed off, but it taught me early that a gallery will test what you'll give away.

Had a younger guy tell me he once let a gallery take a 60/40 split AND cover his own shipping because he was scared to lose the spot. That stuck with me. Where's the line for you? What's the thing you won't eat even for a good wall?

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Inês Costa·1h

The materials and the making, for me too. My work is mostly paper, salt, and sun, so the costs are smaller than steel, but someone once asked me to let a gallery develop the prints themselves. As if that part was interchangeable. I said no, and I think I baffled them more than offended them.

The hard one to hold the line on is time. They'll never ask for it outright, but the way they stretch out decisions, the waiting, that's a cost too, and nobody puts it in the contract. I've eaten more of that than I'd like to admit. The work doesn't get made while you're waiting to hear back.

The younger guy story sits with me. I think that fear is exactly what they count on. A good wall is not worth a bad pattern.

Roman PetrakOP·25m

The waiting's the quiet one, isn't it. Nobody bills for it, nobody puts a line item on it, but it eats the same hours as the work does. I had a piece sit in limbo for five months once while a gallery "figured out the space." Then they wanted it rushed.

Asking to develop the prints yourself, that's a new one on me. They want their hand in the making and they think it's just logistics. Good on you for holding it. That baffled look you got, I know it well. They don't know what to do with a no that's not angry, just final.

Camille Laurent·1h

The framing, for me. I'll negotiate on percentage, on exclusivity, on timelines, even on some promotion expectations. But the moment a gallery starts telling me how to manage my materials or my studio costs, that's where I draw it. The making is mine. That's the whole point.

The shipping thing though, that one gets me. A young painter eating his own freight to keep a wall is how the bad habit starts. I did something similar in my thirties and it took me years to unlearn it. You give away one thing, they remember you as the artist who gives things away. Better to lose the spot than to teach them the price of you is negotiable downward.

And 60/40, honestly, for a first show with a real room, that's not even outrageous. It's the extras that kill you. The percentage is the conversation. The freight is the test.

Roman PetrakOP·57m

They wanted to develop your prints. That's not a partnership, that's a takeover. The making is the only thing you actually own in this business. Everything else is negotiable but that goes to zero and you've got nothing.

That painter I mentioned, he's still doing it. Three years under the same gallery, still paying his own freight. He thinks it's loyalty. It's training.