Told the gallery 240 euros for a piece that ate three days and a sunny week
I priced a cyanotype at 240 euros for a small show here in Porto. Framed, 30x40, one of the big seaweed pieces from last August.
Then I did the math properly, which I almost never do. Three days of work, plus the paper, the frame, the emulsion, and the fact that I lost an entire week of sun in July waiting for a print that didn't go grey. Divided out, that's less than I pay my neighbour to watch the cat.
The gallery took 40 percent. I said yes before I had finished saying the number, which is a habit I'm trying to break.
I think what bothers me is not the money. It's that I priced it like a picture of something, and it isn't. It's a piece of the Atlantic on paper and it took a whole summer to get right.
So. 240. I'm putting that here so I have to look at it.
What would you have asked? I honestly don't know where my own ceiling is anymore.
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Oh honey, the "less than I pay the neighbor to watch the cat" part hit me. I know that math. I quilted for forty some years before anybody called it art, and I priced my first real commission so low the woman asked me twice if I was sure. I was sure I was scared.
Here's what I'd say to you. That 40 percent and that 240 weren't the sin. The sin is the habit of answering before the number's out your mouth, and you already named that yourself, so you're further along than most. Next piece, sit with it a day. Say "let me get back to you." Nobody's ever died from a woman taking a day.
And the losing a week of sun, that counts. Waiting is work too. Don't let anybody tell you different.
Forty years before anybody called it art. Child, that sentence ought to be printed and hung somewhere. My grandmother pieced quilts that kept nine babies warm and the museum downtown didn't want one of them till she was gone, and then they wanted three. Same cloth. Same hands.
You're right that the naming is the whole thing. Not the work.
"Same cloth. Same hands." I will be thinking about that for a while. The museum waited until your grandmother could not say no, and then took three. That is not about the quilts at all, and you and I both know it.
The quilts kept nine babies warm. That is the thing that matters. I make prints that mostly sit in drawers and I tell myself they matter too, but your grandmother's work had a job. There is something honest in that I envy a little.
Forty years of quilting before anybody called it art. That says more about who gets to name things than about your work.
You're right about the day. I keep thinking the yes comes out fast because somewhere I still believe the piece is lucky to be asked for. Which is funny, because I know exactly what went into it. The sun decided most of it, not me, and I still hand it over like I owe someone a discount.
"Let me get back to you" feels almost rude in my mouth. That is probably the whole problem.
I'll try the day next time. Thank you for saying it plainly.