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This happened two weeks ago. A woman messaged me on WhatsApp, very polite, and she was interested in a Kohbar piece I had finished, the wedding painting with the sun and the moon and the lotus, all traditional. She asked the size, the price, all fine. Then she said, "Can you tell me what colours exactly are in it? I need to see if it will match my apartment's vibe." My son was standing there, I showed him the message. He laughed. I sat for a minute. This painting is about marriage, about fertility, about the gods witnessing a union. The colours are what they are, the red from the palash flower, the black from the soot, the yellow from the turmeric. They come from the earth, they are not chosen for a vibe. I told her, very respectfully, that the colours are natural red, yellow, black, some green from leaves. She said okay and asked if I could change the background to white and make the peacocks blue like "navy blue" instead. I said no, I cannot do like that, this is a traditional piece, the peacock has his proper colours in our work. She didn't buy it. Of course. I am still thinking about this. Not angrily. I understand she is from a different world. But I am realising that online, people are not looking for the thing itself. They are looking for something that fits into their already-made life. The painting is not an object with its own story, it is a decor item that must match the sofa. My question is not to complain. I just want to know, for those of you who make traditional or folk work, how do you handle this? When the buyer wants the art but does not want what the art actually is. Do you adjust and survive, or do you hold the line and lose the sale? I am torn.

so I'm shipping a painting to a buyer, right, my first sale in like two months that's actually a decent chunk of change, and I've spent 45 minutes bubble-wrapping this thing like it's a hostage situation. I get to the UPS store and the guy behind the counter watches me put it on the scale and goes "you know, you really should be using a rigid mailer, not a box, the box is gonna shift around in transit." and I'm like oh okay thanks but it's already packed pretty tight, I've got foam corners, it's fine. and he just WOULD NOT let it go. he's like "I ship art all the time, you're gonna get a claim" and starts telling me about the proper way to do it while I'm standing there with my debit card out. like sir I did not ask. I did not come here for a consultation. I came here to pay you $18 to put a sticker on my box. I know he was probably trying to be helpful but I was this close to being like "okay and how many watercolor paintings have YOU shipped that were still wet this morning and you stayed up too late stressing about the corners", I didn't say it because I'm a coward but I wanted to. anyway it arrived fine. no claim. I'm gonna frame that delivery confirmation and put it on my wall.

A foreign buyer came to my village last year. A German lady, very polite, through a cooperative. She saw a Sita ji painting my grandmother did in the 1980s, natural pigments, fine line, the old Maithili style that takes weeks. She wanted to buy it. I told her price, 8,000 rupees. She smiled and said "for local art, that seems high." Then she offered 500 rupees. I could not speak for a moment. 500 rupees for something my mother's mother sat on the floor painting, grinding her own colours from leaves and stone. I told her no, sorry, this painting is not for sale now. She looked confused. I think she thought I would bargain. But some things you do not bargain over. This is the problem we have with folk art. People see our work as "charming" or "ethnic" and they think the price should match a souvenir. You cannot buy a Madhubani painting for the same as a refrigerator magnet. My daughter worked three days on a single fish motif last month. Three days. The pigment alone I have to source from Patna now because the local suppliers for certain minerals have dried up. I am not angry at the lady. She did not know. But I am tired of explaining that this art has a price. My time, my mother's time, my grandmother's recipes for colour. It is not decorative. It is our history.

So I got a message from a woman in Oregon, says she saw a photo of a quilt I made for my grandson's wedding, posted it on Instagram two years ago, just a picture I snapped on the porch, didn't even think about it, and she tracked me down to ask if I'd sell it. I told her honey that quilt's been slept under and washed and loved on, it's got a wine stain from the reception and a cat hair woven right in there somewhere. She said she wanted it more for that reason. So I called my grandson, he said he'd make me a new one if I wanted to let this one go. So I did. She paid me more than I ever charged for a quilt in my life and sent me pictures of it hanging on her wall like it was a painting. And I'm sitting here thinking, I been sewing sixty years and the Lord let me live long enough to see folks call my grandmother's way of doing things "fine art" and buy it off a telephone. I don't know what to do with that. But I know if you had told Grandma Viola her granddaughter would sell a quilt to a stranger in Oregon who saw it on a picture box, she'd have laughed and said you were touched in the head. Anyway. Anybody else got a sale that felt like it came from another planet?

I've been selling small edition screenprints through Instagram and my site for about a year now. Nothing huge, maybe 15-20 pieces a month. A few weeks ago I started slipping in a free risograph print with each order, just something I'd already made, an extra, no mention of it in the listing. I thought it would be a nice gesture. What I didn't expect is that people started posting the risograph more than the thing they paid for. Like, photographing it on their wall, tagging me, asking if it's for sale separately. The free thing became the thing they wanted. It's making me rethink how I present the work. People love feeling like they discovered something, even if you deliberately put it there. There's something about the "bonus" object that reads as more authentic than the main one, probably because it feels less like a transaction. I don't know, maybe this is just a thing everyone in product already knows. But coming from a fine art background where you never give anything away because it devalues the work, it's messing with my head a little.

An interior designer from Atlanta bought five of my quilts this spring to stage a house they were flipping. Paid full price, no haggling, wired the money same day. Not one word about the piecing, the history, the work itself. Just wanted the colors to match a rug. And you know, at first it stung a little. Here I spent fifty years learning to make cloth talk and she wanted a throw pillow. But then I thought about it, because she asked me to cut them loose and let her hang them on a wall instead of a bed, that designer's clients are going to see my work and their grandmothers are going to ask who made it. That's the seed. Same with that gallery show I had in January. The lady who bought the biggest piece told me she'd never owned anything by a Black woman artist and honestly I didn't know whether to feel honored or put on a shelf. I told my granddaughter about it and she said "Mae, they're not buying the quilt, they're buying the wall." And maybe that's the truth of it. The work carries more than I get credit for while I'm standing there. All these years I'd get a little quiet when somebody talked about my quilts being "art" instead of what they are. But the money talks, honey, and the money walked right into my checking account. I guess what I'm saying is don't turn your nose up at the sale that feels a little off. That one may carry the next three.

Found a painting of someone's dachshund from 1983 yesterday. Terrible painting. The dog's eyes were looking in two different directions and one ear was floating. Frame was trashed, matting was that pilled velvet stuff. Bought it anyway. Took the painting out, put it in a drawer. I don't know why I do this. I have a stack of bad pet portraits now and no use for them. But throwing someone's dog away felt wrong. Same thing happens with photographs. Estate sales, flea markets. I've got a shoebox full of people I don't know. Vacations they took, birthday parties, a wedding where the groom's face is scratched out. I keep thinking I'll do something with them but mostly they just sit there. Maybe it's just cheaper than therapy. Or a different kind of hoarding.

Okay so I've been trying to figure out this whole "get your art in front of people who actually buy it" thing instead of just posting into the void and hoping. I kept reading that you're supposed to DM interior designers and stylists but nobody ever says what you're actually supposed to SAY to them?? Like "hi I'm an artist" feels so flat. So last week I just went for it. I picked 12 designers who post the kind of spaces I could actually see my work in, warm, natural light, not super minimal. And I literally just said something like "hey! I'm a watercolor painter and I've been obsessed with how you use color in [specific project they posted]. Just wanted to share a few pieces I think would sit nicely in that kind of space, no pressure at all but thought I'd throw it out there" and attached 3 photos. 3 replied. One asked to set up a call. One said "send me your portfolio" and then went quiet lol. One just said "beautiful work, I'll keep you in mind" which could mean nothing but also could mean something?? I don't know. The thing is I felt so awkward doing it. Like I'm bothering them. But also nobody saw me do it so who cares right. I'm gonna do another batch this week and actually follow up with the ones who went quiet because my friend who's a freelancer said that's the part everybody skips. Anyway just wondering if anyone else has tried this and whether it actually turned into sales or just polite replies that go nowhere. I'll report back if that call turns into anything 🙃