sold a painting for 400, framing ate 190 of it, and the gallery took 50% of what was left
did a 24x30 acrylic, sold it in a group show for 400. felt decent for like four minutes.
then: frame was 190 because it's a weird size and i refuse to build my own anymore. gallery took 50%. so i'm at 105 before materials. the canvas alone was 60, and i used most of a 40 dollar tube of cad red on the background because i got carried away with it.
so basically i paid to have a painting hang on a wall for three weeks. i didn't actually do the math until last night, which is the whole problem. i price by vibe and the vibe is always "what would make this feel reasonable" instead of "what does this need to be."
the thing i can't decide: do i stop doing the group shows, or do i just make the work smaller and cheaper to frame. i've got six panels sitting in the corner that would fit a 40 dollar frame and i keep looking at them like cowards.
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the cad red thing is so real, that's the trap of a pigment that gorgeous, you don't count the tube while you're in it. but honestly 190 on a frame for a 24x30 is brutal and that's the number I'd attack first before the pricing. i started using metal section frames for anything weird-sized and it cut my framing cost in half, they're not gallery-gorgeous but they don't eat your whole margin either.
also the "price by vibe" line hit me because I did the same my first year out. what finally worked for me was pricing so materials + frame + my hourly comes out BEFORE the gallery cut, not after. feels greedy when you type it in, feels correct when the check clears. did you know the 50% was coming when you set the 400, or did you find out after? because that changes the whole math on what you should've asked for.
ok the metal section frame thing is genuinely useful, looking those up now. and yeah 190 was me being a coward about it, i told myself "weird size" and stopped thinking.
the pre-cut math is the part i keep dodging. pricing so it works BEFORE the gallery takes half means the number looks insane on the tag and then i chicken out. how do you get past that part? like the actual flinching when you write it down.