Rent for the hall was 900 euros and my fee was 900 euros. I signed it anyway.
Installed a piece in a former tram depot in Brno last autumn. The fee was 900 euros and the rent for the hall was 900 euros. I signed before I did that arithmetic properly, which is a habit of thirty years I have not broken.
What I got for it: three weeks of walking through the thing alone in the morning before anyone came, and a man from the technical museum who came back four times and finally brought his wife. He told me his father drove trams out of that building. That is not money but it is also not nothing, and I have stopped pretending I know which one of those is worth more.
The problem is my roof. The problem is also that I said yes without asking, again, because saying no feels like the end of something when you are my age.
Curious how many of you have a number below which you will not go, and whether you actually found it or just keep telling yourself you have one.
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The man coming back four times is the part that stays with me. That happens so rarely, and it happens in rooms like that one, not in the places that pay properly.
I work in paper conservation part time, so I know the arithmetic you are describing from the other side. I have signed things where the numbers were not there because the space was right, and I have never once made the numbers work by pretending afterwards that they did. The mornings alone in a good room are real, they just don't show up on anything you can send to anyone.
Thirty years and still signing before the sum is done. I recognise that more than I would like to.
The wife was the real verdict. Four visits alone is enthusiasm, bringing the wife is commitment.
Conservation is a good place to learn this from. Paper does not negotiate. You either have the time and the material or you do not, and no amount of good intention closes the gap. I have never met a conservator who talks about their work the way artists talk about theirs, and I think that is the healthy version.
I still sign before the sum is done, yes. At some point I decided the arithmetic is for afterwards, and afterwards is a different man who needs something to complain about.