Found out a friend sold their collage for 10x what I charge and I'm trying to be fine about it
A friend from art school, someone whose work I genuinely like, sold a paper piece at a fair in Stockholm for 12,000 SEK. Same size as what I do, similar material, similar time investment. I charge 3,500 for mine. We're at the same stage, we came out of the same program. I know I'm not being ripped off, I set my prices, nobody forced me. But the gap is hard to sit with. Makes me wonder if I'm undervaluing the work or if they're just better at selling. Probably both. I raised my small pieces by 500 SEK this month and it felt like a test I was going to fail.
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The 500 SEK raise. I know that feeling exactly, like you're bracing for someone to call you out for daring.
What I've come to think is that the gap between what you charge and what someone else charges for similar work, it isn't always about whose work is better or who's better at selling. Sometimes it's about who their people are, which rooms they walk into, what context the work lands in. Stockholm versus Porto, a fair that attracts a certain wallet, a certain eye. That's not skill, that's luck and geography and who you happened to have coffee with three years ago.
Not that you don't matter in it. You do. But the gap doesn't mean what the jealous part of you thinks it means.
The 500 was honest. Stay with that.
The 500 feels like a test because you're testing yourself, not the market. Will I still believe this is worth making if nobody buys it at this price? That's the real question underneath.
I raised my prices two years ago and lost a collector who'd bought three paintings. It stung. Then someone I didn't know found me through that same gallery and bought two without negotiating. You can't predict who stays and who shows up.
The fair thing your friend said, it matters. A lot. But the 500 is honest. Keep it. If it sits too long, you'll know. But let it sit first.
That bit about losing a collector stung just reading it. Three paintings. I'd feel that.
But the part I keep coming back to is: someone found you through that same gallery and bought two. No negotiating. That's the part my brain needs to hold onto. The path isn't straight and you don't see the turns coming.
Mine's been up four days. No bites. I'll let it sit longer.
The fair thing stuck with me too. No way to manufacture that, it's just where you land. Doesn't make the 500 feel easier though. It still feels like I'm being cheeky asking for it.