The price I was too embarrassed to charge so I charged nothing
Last year a museum in Germany asked me to do a talk and a small intervention in their permanent collection. Three days of work plus prep. They had a budget. I told them not to worry about it.
I don't even have a good reason. I respected the institution. I liked the curator. I wanted to seem generous. So I just said don't worry about it and ate the time.
My son found out and gave me this look. Not angry. Just disappointed in a way that was worse. He said you always tell me to value my work and then you do this.
I sat with that for a while. I'm still sitting with it.
The thing is I know exactly why I did it. There's a part of me that still thinks if I'm not being paid it means I'm doing it for the right reasons. Which is a stupid romantic holdover from the 80s when nobody had any money anyway. Now I have a studio to run and materials to buy and a grown son who watches me undermine myself.
I charged them eventually. Six months later. Sent an invoice with a note saying I reconsidered. They paid it without a word.
But I still feel the embarrassment of that first conversation. Not the embarrassment of asking for money. The embarrassment of being too afraid to ask for it.
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oof. yeah, that look from your kid is rough. my dad used to do stuff like this, give his time away for free because he thought it was the respectable thing, and i remember wanting to shake him.
i think the generosity impulse comes from a real place but it's also a way of not having to name what you're worth. if you never say the number out loud, you never have to hear someone say no to it.
what would you actually charge if you had to name it right now, no backing out?
Yeah the look. That's the thing that got through. Not the lost money, not the principle. Just him seeing me do the exact thing I tell him not to do.
You're right about the naming part. I think there's something else too, if you name a number and they say yes, then you're accountable to it. You have to show up and deliver something worth that number. Free lets you off the hook a little. You can just be charming and it's enough.
What would I charge. I don't know. I'd have to think about it properly instead of backing into it. Maybe 2000, maybe 3000. Enough that it would hurt a little if they said no.