I charged a friend 150 for a portrait because she cried when she saw it
150.
A3, charcoal on toned paper, took me nine hours over two sittings. That was my number because she's a friend from the old days and she was crying in my kitchen when I showed her the first pass and I heard myself say "don't worry about it, 150." She tipped me 30 and brought me coffee twice.
The piece is on her wall now and it's good. It's actually good. I'd put it at 700 if a stranger walked in. Probably 900 in a gallery, but that's a fight I'm nowhere near winning yet.
What actually gets me is that this is the third one. Same friend group, same "oh you should do one of my mum," same me dropping the number before I've even finished the sentence. I do it because I'm scared they'll say no, and then I'm salty for a week about being asked at all, which is insane because I'm the one who priced it.
My teacher-free education did not cover this part. I can put a mouth on a face that makes people go quiet but I cannot say the number without my voice doing a thing.
Anyway. If anyone's cracked this, what do you actually say, out loud, in the room, when it's someone you love and the number is five times what you're about to say.
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The crying in the kitchen is the whole problem isn't it. You're standing there with charcoal on your hands and she's gone, and the price you'd planned leaves your head entirely and something smaller comes out of your mouth instead. I do it every time. There's a version of me that can hold the number and a version that's in the room with a crying friend, and they've never once met.
Nine hours though. That's not a favour, that's nearly a day and a half of your hands. I print linocuts, editions of twenty, and I've a fella in town buys them at a "sure you're only starting out" rate that I set myself years ago and have never had the neck to raise. It's the same trap. The work is good enough, it's the asking that's the weak part.
No advice, because I've none that works. But the third one in the same group is the bit that'd annoy me most. That's not generosity anymore, that's a price list.
Ji, this "version of me that can hold the number" and the version standing in the room, they have never met in my house also. I do Mithila painting here in Madhubani, and in our tradition the work is given for weddings, for births, for blessings. So when a neighbour's daughter is getting married and they ask for a kohbar, what rate I will say? It feels like charging for a blessing. But the paper and the natural colours cost money, and my hands cost something also, and nobody counts that part.
You do linocuts, editions of twenty, that is real labour. The fella buying at "sure you're only starting out" rate, he knows very well you are not starting out. I hope one day you print the number on the paper itself. Small, in the corner. Then it is not you saying it, it is the work saying it.
The kohbar thing stopped me, honestly. "It feels like charging for a blessing." Yeah. That's the exact shape of it. Except nobody in my case has a tradition to hide behind, so it's just me standing there going "don't worry about it" like an idiot while my hands are doing nine hours of work nobody's counting.
Here's the question I can't answer for you either: does the paper know it's a blessing? Because the paper cost money. The natural colours, the grinding, whatever goes into them, that's real. And your hands, years of them. I don't think a blessing stops being one because money changed hands first. I think we've all been sold some romantic version of it where the gift has to be free or it isn't pure. That's not tradition, that's poverty dressed up as virtue.
But I KNOW that's easy to type from here and hard to say to a neighbour with a daughter getting married. If you ever find the number, tell me what it was. I'll steal it.
(And yes, linocuts, twenty off the block, my wrist knows about it. "Sure you're only starting out" has followed me for eleven years now. At some point it's not a comment, it's a leash.)
"there's a version of me that can hold the number and a version that's in the room with a crying friend, and they've never once met" ok WOW. that's the whole thing, you just said it better than I did in the post. because the number isn't even the hard part, I can say 700 out loud to myself in the car no problem. it's that her face changes and suddenly charging her feels like charging her for the crying, like I'd be putting a price on the moment and not the drawing.
but nine hours is nine hours and I keep pretending it isn't. editions of twenty and a fella paying the starting out rate, god, that one hit. does he know it's an edition of twenty or does he think he's getting the only one? because that's a different kind of sting.
I think I'm gonna say the number BEFORE I show anyone anything from now on. out loud, in the text, before the tears get a chance to renegotiate for me. terrified of it honestly.