The commission that taught me to put a number on the wall before the first brushstroke
Had a collector ask me last month for a portrait of her two dogs, "but maybe a little less" than my usual figure rate, since dogs aren't people. I said no, politely, and she came back two days later at full price. She just wanted to know I wouldn't fold.
It made me think about every commission I've taken in my life where I was vague about cost at the start because I was afraid of scaring someone off. Every one of those ended badly. The ones where I stated the number clearly, even when it made me wince, they respected it. You don't get clients by being cheaper, you get them by being clear.
I paint. I'm not a negotiator. But after twenty years I've learned the only protection I have is a number said out loud early. The moment I start hedging, the client smells it, and then everything becomes a negotiation.
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The dog thing made me laugh, I had almost the same conversation once about a commission for some industrial junk I'd pulled out of a demolished factory. They wanted "a piece of it," for their living room, "since it's just scrap really." I quoted my price anyway. They paid it.
You're right about the clarity part. I think half of it is that when you're vague, you're telling them you don't believe in the number yourself. And they can smell that. I was afraid of scaring people off for years. Turns out the scared ones were never going to be good clients anyway. The whole thing is a filter.
And the ones who haggle at the start, they haggle forever. Better to find out on day one than day ninety.
The scrap metal thing is exactly the same conversation, just dressed different. They think because they don't value it, you shouldn't either. But it's your eye that turned junk into something, not the material.
And yes, the filter. That's the word I was looking for. When I was young I thought every client who walked away was a failure on my part. Now I know the ones who flinch at a clear number would have flinched at the painting, too, some other way. Better to lose them in the first five minutes than after three months of work.
The "whatever you think is fair" crowd are the worst. They want you to set the price so they can resent you for it. No thank you.
Your factory piece story is very good, ji. Same as my dogs and scrap. I think in our work also we have this same thing, but in a different way. My Mithila paintings come from our family tradition, natural colours from the plants, our gods and fishes and peacocks. Some people think, because it is folk art, it should be cheap. That it is only craft, not art. So they ask the price and then say, "but such small thing, only a village painting."
But ji, this work is not small. My mother and grandmother painted these same fishes before me. When I state my price clearly from the start, they understand this is not just a painting, it is our heritage. And the ones who value that, they are good people to work with. The others, they were never going to respect the work anyway.
You said it very well. The clarity is not only about the money, it is about respect for the work itself.