Sold a painting and immediately wanted to buy it back

Sold a piece yesterday. Woman came to the studio, looked at it for maybe four minutes, said "that's the one," paid, and now it leaves on Friday and I've been weirdly sick about it all day.

It's a big charcoal head, the one I did in February when I couldn't sleep for a week. I know exactly what's in that face and now it's going to hang in a house in Ridgewood where nobody knows any of it. Which is the whole point, that's the job, and I'm still sitting here at 11pm thinking about asking her if she'd take a smaller one instead.

I don't think this gets easier. I think you just get better at not saying it out loud.

Anyway. If you make things and let them go, how do you actually do it, because clearly my method of "make it, panic, hand it over" isn't sustainable.

7comments

Add your reply to this discussion…

7 comments

Karen Wessel·1h

I get this. I sold a small landscape last spring, nothing heavy like yours, and I still caught myself hoping the buyer would change her mind on the drive home. Four minutes is quick though. Part of me thinks that's a good sign, she knew. But I'd probably be a wreck too if it was the one I made at 3am.

Dani Okafor·1h

See I read the four minutes the opposite way, and maybe this is me being naive, but I think four minutes means she saw the thing and didn't need to be talked into it. The ones who circle for twenty minutes are the ones buying a couch. The four minute ones are the ones who got hit by it.

The hoping she'd change her mind on the drive home part though, god, yes. I sold a little gouache of my kitchen window in the spring and spent the whole next week convinced I'd underpriced it, not because of the money but because if it was worth more maybe it would've been harder for her to take it. Which is nonsense, I know. Still thought it.

Sol ReyesOP·32m

Oh that reframe lands, I hadn't thought about it that way at all. Four minutes as in she didn't need convincing. That's actually a relief to read at 11pm, thank you.

But the gouache thing, god. "if it was worth more maybe it would've been harder for her to take it" that's the real thing isn't it. It's not the money it's the idea that the price should have made it matter enough to keep. Which, no. That's not how it works and I know it's not how it works and I still sat here doing the math on what I should've asked.

Sol ReyesOP·1h

A landscape feels different though, doesn't it? Like less of you is in it. Or maybe I'm just telling myself that because a head is all nerve endings. The hoping she'd change her mind on the drive home part got me. I've been drafting a text to her in my head all night and I don't even have her number.

Four minutes. I keep turning it around. Half of me thinks she just knew, and half of me thinks you can't possibly see a thing in four minutes that took a week of not sleeping. But then I've stood in front of paintings for two minutes and felt like someone read my mail, so I don't know. Maybe knowing is fast.

Dani Okafor·1h

The February insomnia one, yeah of course that's the one that hurts. You made it in a week where you weren't okay and now it's just... a thing someone picked out in four minutes, that's such a strange mismatch to sit with. And four minutes, honestly, that's not enough time to see a charcoal head, she's going to find the rest of it later and that's the part I'd be thinking about at 11pm too.

I sold a big gouache last fall, way less loaded than yours, and I still had this dumb moment of wanting to text the buyer and be like "you know you don't have to keep it." didn't do it. sort of wish I had haha. anyway the smaller one instead thing, I get the impulse but I don't think you'd actually feel better, you'd just be sick about a different painting. it's the letting go that's the problem, not which piece.

also god the charcoal head from the bad week is probably the most honest thing you've made all year, so of course it's the one that goes. that's not a coincidence, people feel that even if they can't name it in four minutes.

Sol ReyesOP·44m

The "you don't have to keep it" text is EXACTLY the kind of thing I would send and then stare at my phone for an hour waiting for a reply that makes it worse 😭 And you didn't send it, which honestly might be the more grown up move. I'm not there yet.

But you're right that it's the four minutes that's doing me in. Not that she didn't look long enough, more that she doesn't need to. I spent a week in that face and she gets to just... have it. And then find the rest later, like you said, in her own house, in her own time. Part of me wants to be there for that, which I know is insane and not my job anymore.

I keep going back and forth on whether I want to text her about the February thing. "Just so you know" like I'm handing over a warning label.

Roman Petrak·32m

Four minutes is fine. Four minutes is a person who knows what they're looking at. The ones who circle for twenty usually want to be sold on it, and that's a different transaction.

What I'd think about instead is the charcoal itself. Big head, worked hard, probably not fixed properly if it came out of a bad week. That's the thing that'll bite you in a year or two, not the buyer.