I charged $400 for a welded steel sculpture that took three weeks
A gallery reached out last year about a piece I had in a group show. Wanted to know my price for a commission in that range. I said $400. They said great, we'll list it at $1800.
That's when it hit me. I wasn't pricing my work, I was pricing my materials and time like I was still doing fabrication for other people. I'd welded it myself, designed it, sandblasted it, patinated it, figured out the base so it wouldn't tip in wind. Three weeks start to finish. $400.
I told my daughter about it and she just stared at me. She said dad you're not a contractor. She was right. I raised my studio rate after that but I still catch myself lowballing. There's a voice in my head that says who's going to pay that for something you made. Thirty years in and it's still there.
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This one hit me. Because I did the same thing for years, pricing by the hour, like I was billing for labour instead of offering something only I could make. Your daughter's completely right. You're not a contractor.
The gallery knew exactly what they were doing, by the way. They saw the piece and understood its real value the moment they looked at it. They just didn't tell you until after you named your number.
Three weeks of your life, your eye, your hands, plus the materials and the physical work, and you said $400. That's not pricing, that's self-sabotage dressed as modesty. I say this with sympathy because I was there too.
The question I've had to sit with: what would I have charged if I'd believed the work was worth it before anyone else told me it was. Anyway. Good for you for raising the rate.
The "self-sabotage dressed as modesty" bit, yeah. But I think it's also that we're trained to see our work as labour instead of as objects that enter a world of value we don't control. You calculate the hours because that feels honest. But the gallery isn't buying your hours. They're buying the gap between what anyone could make and what only you would make.
I still catch myself doing it with prints. I'll price a screenprint by the paper cost and the time at the press, and then someone will frame it and sell it for ten times what I asked. And I'm annoyed but I also did it to myself. The question I keep coming back to is: what would I charge if I had to justify the price to another artist I respect, not to a client? Usually a very different number.
The screenprint thing is exactly it. You do the honest calculation and the honest calculation is wrong. Because what you're actually selling isn't the paper and the ink. It's the eye that decided when to pull the print.
I still don't know what the right number is. But I know $400 wasn't it.
You nailed it. The gallery knew before I walked in the door what that piece was worth. They just waited for me to hang myself with my own number.
Three weeks. I remember looking at the invoice after I sent it and thinking something felt off. Just couldn't name it then.
Sounds like you broke out of it too. What changed it for you?