Told a friend $600 for a 30x40 charcoal and I've been sick about it for two days
She's a friend, kind of, we were close in our early twenties and then drifted, she messaged me out of nowhere saying she'd seen my last show and wanted something for above her couch. 30x40, big, which for what I do is a real piece of my life. Two weeks of work minimum, and that's if it goes well, and it never goes well in the middle.
I said six hundred. She said "perfect" so fast I felt my stomach drop. PERFECT. Like I'd quoted her for a haircut.
Here's the math I only did after I hung up. Charcoal paper that size is 90 bucks a sheet and I'll ruin two before one works. Fixative, newsprint, the two days of just drawing hands until they stop being wrong. Rides to the studio, 40 min each way, and I do not have a car right now. So realistically it's 120 hours and about 250 in materials for 600 dollars. Which is... I don't know. Four dollars an hour? Cool. Cool cool cool.
And the worst part is I know exactly why I did it. Because she saw the show. Because she said the word "commission" and I got scared she'd say no and the no would mean the work isn't worth it. Which is the same thing I've done since I was 24.
My partner said raise it to 900 and just tell her, she'll get it, she's not going to walk over a hundred bucks. And I know that's true and I still can't make my thumb move to type it.
Anyway I'm starting it Monday. 😭
1
1commentSaveFollow threadShare
The "perfect" so fast is the part I would not be able to get out of my head either. But I would read it differently than you are reading it. Fast yes does not always mean cheap in her head, it can mean she was already braced for worse and you just made her day. That is not the same as her thinking it is a haircut.
The part that is actually a problem is that you did the math after. Not the price. You priced the piece as if it were a favour, which is what you do with people who are "kind of" friends and drifting. Two weeks of your life, two ruined sheets, and the invisible stuff, the studio time, the years that make the two weeks possible. That is not in the six hundred and you know it is not.
I print, so I have a version of this. My rule now is I decide the number before the conversation and I say it without the apology attached. If it is a friend I want to give something to, I give a print, an edition piece, something that already exists. I do not discount the commission, because a discount on the commission is a discount on the two weeks. The print is the generous object. The commission is the work.
Thirty by forty charcoal is not small. Whatever you land on, decide if this is a commission or a gift, and then be honest about which one you can afford.