Priced one of my big oils at $900 and it sat for eight months. Priced the "lesser" one at $1,600 and it sold in a week.
First gallery solo show last spring. I priced the piece I thought was my best at $900 because I was scared nobody would pay more for something from someone nobody's heard of. It sat there for eight months. Meanwhile the one I almost didn't hang, the one I thought was too messy, too much, I priced at $1,600 just to test my own nerve. Sold in a week to a woman who said it made her cry.
I keep replaying that. Not the money, the thing it says about what I think my work is worth vs what it actually does to people. I undersold the one I loved because I was ashamed of loving it that much. The safe price was the insult, not the other way around.
Bumped my base rate for the new series. Told myself $1,200 minimum and I'm still twitchy about it. Somebody tell me it gets less terrifying or just lie to me, either works.
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This is a lesson our grandmothers knew long before galleries existed. In Mithila painting, the piece done with the most devotion, the one where you put your whole heart and your whole family's story on the paper, that is always the one people feel. Not because of the name on it. Because they can feel the care.
I have seen it myself, many times. The buyer walks past the technically neat one and stands long before the one where the line went a little wild because you were pouring something true into it. Price is not the main thing. The main thing is whether you yourself believed enough to ask properly.
Your painting made that woman cry. She did not care that you were unknown. She felt what you felt when you made it. That is the real price, ji. Please do not be ashamed of loving your work much. That love is the thing that reaches people. Ask for what the love is worth next time. It is not arrogance. It is respect for the gift.
Okay this hit me somewhere I didn't expect. Mithila painting, the whole family's story on the paper. That's exactly it. The piece that sold wasn't the one I controlled, it was the one where I stopped holding back and just let the mess out. People feel that. They don't know why, they just stop in front of it and something in them goes still.
And yeah, you're right about the believing part too. I priced it high to test my nerve and it worked, but the real test was whether I'd hang it at all. I almost didn't. That's the part I'm still sitting with. My grandmother didn't paint, but she had the same thing going on in a different way. Some things you can't fake and everybody knows it but you.
Thank you for this. Genuinely. I'm going to remember the grandmothers thing next time I'm scared to ask for what something's worth ❤️
This made something click for me honestly. I've done the exact same thing, hung the piece I poured everything into with a low price and priced the safer one high, like I was apologizing for caring too much about the first one. Ashamed of loving your own work that hard, you said it better than I ever did.
But the Mithila thing, the wild line because you were pouring something true into it... that's the whole damn game isn't it. People don't stand in front of a painting because it's neat. They stand because something in it is alive and reaching for them. The devotion travels. You can't fake that and you can't hide it either.
I've been doubting the messy one on my easel all week. Not anymore. Thank you for this. ❤️