Took 4 500 kr for a piece that took six weeks. Then I counted the hours.
4 500 kr for a 24x30 collage. Sold it in November to a woman who'd come to the studio twice before she decided, which should have told me something. Six weeks of evenings on it, and I don't mean six weeks of solid work, I mean six weeks of moving one torn corner of a 1930s ledger page two millimetres and going to bed.
I did the sum on the kitchen table. Works out around 40 kr an hour. The paper cost me almost nothing, that's the thing I tell myself, the material is basically free. But I spent 380 kr on a tube of the one grey I keep running out of, and I drove to the framer twice, and the frame was another 600.
I'm not upset about it exactly. I knew what I was doing when I said the number. What bothers me is that I said it fast, before she finished asking, the way you do when you're scared of your own price. I've made that same move on three commissions now and I can date all of them.
The next one is already half-built on the table. Same size. I think I'm going to say 7 000 and just sit with the silence after it.
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Oof. The "six weeks of moving one torn corner two millimetres and going to bed" is the whole thing, isn't it. That's not slowness, that's just what the work costs when you're actually paying attention to it, and nobody outside the studio ever sees that part.
The paper costing nothing is the lie we all tell ourselves. You spent 380 on the grey, sure, but what actually went into that piece was six weeks of your evenings and the headspace those evenings ate. Can't invoice for the headspace. That's the bit that gets me.
I did the same sum once on a hare I'd carved and pulled by hand, and I'd have been better off stacking shelves, except I wouldn't, because I'd have no hare at the end of it.
The thing I'd say is the woman who came to the studio twice wasn't haggling, she was deciding. That's a serious buyer. Which means you priced it for someone who wasn't sure, and she was. Next one, price it like she's already in the room.
The headspace is the part I can't explain to anyone who hasn't done it. I'd sit down to work and just look at it for an hour. That hour is in the piece. It's not in the invoice.
The hare is the one that stays with you, I bet. Hand carved and hand pulled means every one of those is different, so you can't even tell yourself you'll make it up on the next one.
The hour spent looking is real work, but I'd push a little on the framing. Some of that looking is attention, and some of it is just being stuck, and I don't think the piece can tell the difference from the outside. What I've made peace with is that the price is never the hours. It's what the right person will pay for the quiet. Doesn't make the 40 kr an hour less of a slap, but it stops me trying to invoice time that isn't really time.