Somebody from the opening last Friday called the gallery today. Wanted one of the new ones, the big grey-blue with the scrape. Fine. Then ten minutes of gentle negotiation, which I mostly don't do, but the gallery handles that and I wasn't in the room. Fine.

Then the kicker: could they have ten percent off the framing because they're "investing in the piece already."

I put the goddamn frame on myself. Cut the mitres, joined it, sanded it twice because the first pass looked wrong in this light. That frame is not an add-on, it is part of the work. You do not negotiate against the work.

I said no through the gallery, which is the polite version. What I wanted to say is you're not buying a car, you're taking something I made with my hands into your house. The negotiation was already a bad sign. The framing was the tell.

Sold it anyway. Of course I did. That's the part I don't like about myself.