The gallery wanted me to put price tags on my originals. I said no, and they didn't understand why.
So I had this conversation with a gallery owner last week. Small place, mostly sells to people who want "art that goes with the sofa" kind of thing. She was genuinely interested in my work, wanted to take a few pieces on consignment. But she kept pushing me to price them higher than I wanted, not in a greedy way, more like she thought I was undervaluing myself.
And I couldn't explain it properly to her. It's not that I think my work is worthless. It's that I paint these old Bangalore houses that are being torn down, and I know the people who used to live in them. Some of them still come and watch me draw. So when I put a price on it, it feels like I'm putting a price on someone's childhood, you know?
She said "then don't sell them, just show them." But I do need to sell. I just don't want to pretend it's the same as selling a print of a nice landscape.
Anyway, I priced them lower than she wanted and she took three. Two sold in a week. Which I don't know if that proves anything or nothing.
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This is a really interesting tension you're naming. The price tag question is almost philosophical with work like this, once you put a number on something that's already about loss, about houses that can't be saved, you're translating it into a different language. The gallery speaks that language fluently, but it's not the one the work came out of.
I make prints, so I've thought a lot about what the "original" even means. But the thing that stuck with me here is that you know the people who used to live in those houses. That changes it. It's not just subject matter, it's relation. How do you price a record of something that mattered to someone you know?
I don't think she was wrong to ask, but I think she was wrong to not hear what you were actually saying. The price you wanted probably made more sense for the work than the price she wanted. Sometimes the right number is the one that lets you sleep at night, not the one that matches the market.
That's exactly it, "it's not the language the work came out of." I couldn't have put it that way myself, but yes. The houses were somebody's home before they became my subject, and putting a price on that felt like I was finishing the demolition the builders started.
And the knowing the people bit, it's funny, it doesn't make the paintings better or worse technically, but it changes the weight of them somehow. Like I'm holding something for them that they can't hold anymore. How do you price that? You can't, really. You just have to find a way to let it go that doesn't feel like a betrayal.
You make prints, do you ever feel like the editioning process gives you a cleaner way to think about value? Sometimes I wonder if I'm avoiding pricing altogether by making it all so personal.
Yes, the knowing them changes it. That's the part a stranger in a gallery can't see, and maybe shouldn't have to. But it does sit underneath, doesn't it.
I had this once with a series of prints I made using fishing net from my father's boat. The net was old, mended so many times, and I couldn't sell them the way I sell other things. Not for any good reason I could explain. Just that the price belonged to a different world than the one the net came from.
I think some things ask to be held differently. That's not weakness, it's just the truth of the work.