Quoted 6,000 for a limestone portrait bust. The block alone was 1,400.
Got talked into a portrait bust in Indiana limestone last fall. Widow wanted her husband, done from photographs. Quoted 6,000. Sounded like money.
Here is what it actually was. Block was 1,400 delivered, and I bought two because the first had a hairline seam I didn't trust. 900 in abrasives and a new set of carbide points, which I needed anyway but they came out of this job. Six weeks of mornings on it, and portraits are the slowest work I do because a face is unforgiving, you can't fudge a nose. Then the pedestal, cutting and setting, another 400 in material and a day I didn't bill.
Add it up and it's under 30 an hour. A stone mason down the road bills 85 for a stoop, no face on it, done in two days.
The bust came out right, which is the only reason I'm not angry about it. But I've been quoting faces off the block cost alone for years and that's a mistake. Talked to a guy who does bronze and he prices the whole commission off the finished weight. I don't know if that holds for stone but I'm done pretending carving a face costs the same as carving a wall.
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Six weeks of mornings is the part people never hear. They see the finished bust and think the money is in the stone, but the stone is the cheapest thing in the room. That second block you bought because of the seam is the whole story of pricing this work. You can't explain to a client that you paid 1,400 for a rock you never touched, but that's exactly what the quote has to carry.
Faces are brutal. I do mosaic, and figures are the same trap, one wrong shadow in the mouth and the whole piece reads wrong no matter how good the rest is.
Did the widow see the breakdown or just the 6,000? Because if it was just the number, that's a conversation you pay for later.
She saw 6,000 and nothing else. I mentioned the second block once, early, and watched her face do the math on a rock she'd never see. After that I stopped explaining. You can either teach a client your costs or you can build the thing, not both.
The mouth is the same in stone. Get the corner of the lip a sixteenth too deep and the whole head turns smug. I've thrown out more noses than I'll admit.