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A man at a market stall today, watching me pack up, said he loved one of the small collages but wondered if I'd take it out of "that cheap white frame" so he could put it in "something proper," gold, heavy. He meant well. That's the thing, they always mean well. I charge the work, not the frame. The frame is a 49-krona pine thing from Clas Ohlson because the work is the paper, and gold would kill it. But I stood there doing the polite smile and saying "it's part of the piece" while he kept telling me he knew a framer who could do it properly, like the glass mattered more than what's behind it. Didn't tell him most of my work isn't even framed. It's pinned. The paper breathes. Anyway. Four hours in that hall and the one person who stopped long enough to look properly was a woman who asked if the pages were from a hymnbook. They were. She got it. I sold her the one with the torn corner for less than I should have and I don't regret it.

I finally got my first gallery interest last year. Small space, local, nothing fancy. They were excited about my pastels, I was terrified and thrilled. Then they sent the contract and it said I had to provide all framing myself, which, okay, fine, I get it for pastels since they're fragile. So I spent a small fortune getting proper frames made, shipped everything insured, held my breath. They emailed two weeks later saying the frames didn't fit their "aesthetic vision" and could I send different ones. I couldn't. I'd spent everything on the first set. So the whole thing fell apart. I'm still not sure if that was normal and I was naive, or if they were unreasonable. What's the weirdest thing a gallery has asked you to do that made you go... wait, what?

so my first proper gallery show, years ago, small local place, lovely folks running it. they asked me to deliver everything framed and ready to hang. i thought that was normal. so i framed twenty linocuts, spent a fortune on decent frames, nearly took the hands off myself carting them across town. then i found out a lot of galleries take a commission but handle the framing themselves. or some split it. or they've got a guy. what's the norm where you are? do you deliver frame-ready or does the gallery sort that? and who pays if something gets dinged in transit, ever had that conversation go sideways?

I've done this three times now and I keep doing it. A client says they want the best, gold leaf, a hand-carved frame, the real thing, and I nod along because yes, that is what I want to make too. Then I order the frame from a specialist in Avignon who does nothing else, and I'm already €700 in before I've touched a brush to linen. The portrait itself took about six weeks, off and on, between teaching and the daughter's schedule. When I calculated my hourly rate after the frame, the stretcher, the materials, the varnish, it came to about €11.50 an hour. My daughter makes more babysitting. I know I should charge separately for the frame. I know I should quote the whole thing upfront with a deposit that covers materials. But there's something in me that wants the final price to just be the price, like the frame is part of the painting, not a line item. Stupid, probably. The client would never know the difference. Anyone else just bad at separating what you make from what you need to make it?

So I sold a small head study last week. Toned grey paper, maybe A3, one of the ones I did in a single sitting because I was trying to loosen up. I had it priced at 450 euros and honestly I typed that number and then went and made tea so I would not have to look at it. The woman wrote back asking whether the price includes framing. And I said no, framing is separate, I can recommend the place on Gołębia. Then I sat there feeling like I had cheated her somehow. Because the paper cost maybe 6 euros and the pastels I used were already here, so in my head the material cost is almost nothing and I forget the eleven years of doing this badly before I could do it this way. But here is the part I cannot get past. A frame at that shop is 300 euros. So the frame now costs two thirds of the drawing it holds. I do not know what to do with that information. Do I raise the drawing so it looks like a proper thing next to a 300 euro frame, or do I start recommending the cheap framer and hope nobody notices the difference at the edges. I am not even sure this is a pricing question. Maybe it is a "what is a drawing worth when the thing around it is worth more" question. But it is keeping me up, and my partner says I should just be glad it sold, which I am. I am. Just also not.

I did a half-length of a woman in a green armchair last spring. Fourteen sessions, two hours each, plus the drying and the varnishing. Quoted 2 200 euros for the painting. The client wanted it framed and I said yes, I'll take care of it. Went to my man in the 7e, solid oak, hand-finished, 310 euros. Handed her the painting, she was delighted, she paid, everyone shook hands. Then I did the arithmetic on a Sunday, which is always a mistake. Fourteen sessions plus prep plus varnish, call it thirty-five hours, minus the frame, minus the canvas and the lead white I burned through, that's not 63 euros an hour, it's closer to 54. Before I pay myself anything at all. For work that took me eleven years of atelier training to be able to do. I know that 54 is not nothing. But my dentist doesn't frame things for free. Voilà. The real problem is I never asked myself whether the price should have included the frame before I opened my mouth. I just said yes, because she was standing in front of me being nice about the painting. I am very good at being nice about the painting. I've since put framing on a separate line on the quote. It feels awkward, like I'm nickel-and-diming a client who is already spending two thousand euros with me. But the alternative is me eating 310 every time and calling it part of the job.

ok so I had a conversation last week with a gallery that was interested in showing my work and I was so excited at first and then they dropped that I'd need to frame everything myself AND cover the framing costs, like hundreds of dollars per piece, and I'm supposed to just absorb that?? they said it's standard but I've also had other galleries tell me that's kind of a red flag if they're not splitting or covering at least some of it. I haven't signed anything yet and now I'm second-guessing the whole thing. my gut says if they believe in the work enough to show it they should have some skin in the game too? or am I being naive here. my first gallery experience was actually great, a small spot near my old apartment that handled everything, frames, promo, even insisted on paying for my train to the opening lol. so maybe that spoiled me. what's your take, is paying for your own framing just part of the deal or a sign they're not that invested?

so i did this thing a few months ago where a neighborhood coffee shop asked for four 24x36 acrylic pieces. walls are big, they wanted "something colorful," easy brief. i quoted $400 for all four because i'm an idiot and thought "bulk discount" like i'm selling socks. $100 per painting. that's like $2.60 an hour if you count the sketching and the repainting and the repainting again because acrylic dries fast and i hate myself. finally deliver them. they're thrilled. two weeks later i walk in for coffee and they've framed them in these cheap black frames from michael's. completely covering the edges. i paint the edges. that's like. a thing i do. the sides are part of it. they just. framed over them. i didn't say anything. i drank my latte and left. still haven't said anything. $400 and my edges are in framing jail forever.

Somebody from the opening last Friday called the gallery today. Wanted one of the new ones, the big grey-blue with the scrape. Fine. Then ten minutes of gentle negotiation, which I mostly don't do, but the gallery handles that and I wasn't in the room. Fine. Then the kicker: could they have ten percent off the framing because they're "investing in the piece already." I put the goddamn frame on myself. Cut the mitres, joined it, sanded it twice because the first pass looked wrong in this light. That frame is not an add-on, it is part of the work. You do not negotiate against the work. I said no through the gallery, which is the polite version. What I wanted to say is you're not buying a car, you're taking something I made with my hands into your house. The negotiation was already a bad sign. The framing was the tell. Sold it anyway. Of course I did. That's the part I don't like about myself.

First gallery I was ever in, they wanted me to frame every piece myself. Not just deliver them framed, they wanted me to pick the frames, pay for them, bring them ready to hang. They'd take 50%. I was so desperate to be in a gallery I just said yes and spent a month building frames in my studio. I look back and think, what a fool. But also I still don't know: is that just how some places operate? Where's the line between "that's normal" and "they're taking advantage"? What's the thing you accepted early on that you'd never accept now?

So I'm after getting the quote back from the framer for a batch of six, and it's 160 a frame. The print inside it is 145. I priced that print maybe four years ago and never touched it since, because the ones who buy it buy it at the market and they know the price, and changing it felt like a whole thing I didn't want to have. Meanwhile the lino went up, the paper went up, the ink went up, and the glass of a Saturday morning when I'm standing in the rain in Salthill went up too if you want to count that, and I do, because a wet market day is four hours of my life. The mad part is the framer is dead right to charge it. He's got the same problem as me only he's after solving it. I'm not raising it to 200, that's a jump too far and I'd lose the regulars. I'm thinking 175 in the new year and just eating the flak for a month or two. My wife says I should have done it two years ago. She's not wrong but she says that about most things. Anyone else sitting on a price they set back when diesel was cheaper and the head was lighter and just never getting round to it?

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.

Someone bought one of my originals this week. A small one, the old house on Mosque Road with the bougainvillea that's now gone. Honestly I nearly didn't even put proper glass on it, I was planning to keep it herself and just did a simple frame. But a friend insisted, said you frame everything like it matters. And the funny thing is, the buyer was someone who walked past while I was sketching it on site, months ago, and asked me about the house. She remembered me. The painting was still sitting in my pile of unsold work and she recognised it. I keep thinking about how close it came to being a flimsy frame. And also how the house itself is just a slab now. But this little paper version went somewhere with someone who actually cares about the building that was there. That feels right, somehow. Selling art is weird. But I'll take it.

I took a finished portrait to get framed today and the woman behind the counter looked at it and said, with this sympathetic little head tilt, "oh, pastel. that's a shame, it's such a fragile medium, isn't it. not really archival." And then she showed me their "serious" framing options for oil paintings. I stood there holding my piece like a fool. It's a portrait of my friend's daughter, I worked on it three weeks, I got the light on her cheek right for the first time in maybe ever. And this woman just... dismissed it with one sentence. I didn't say anything smart back. I just said "oh" and let her frame it in something basic and left. And now I'm home and I'm so annoyed at myself for not saying anything. But also, what do you even say? It's not the first time someone's implied pastel is for hobbyists or children or people who don't want to commit to "real" paint. I keep thinking about that word. Fragile. Like my work is inherently less because of the dust on my fingers. Like the softness of it means it's weaker. Anyway. I'm going to keep using pastels because I love them. But I wish I'd said something. 😅

finally framed a piece that's been leaning against my wall since march. two years of looking at it unframed thinking it was unfinished and wrong and honestly kind of bad. twenty minutes in a cheap frame from ikea and i get it now. it was never the painting, it was the context. there's something about the edge that tells your brain where the work ends and the room begins. anyway now i'm mad at every piece i've sold unframed and also slightly furious i've been showing work like this my whole life lol. does anyone else have a painting they've been living with for ages that a frame completely flipped? or is this just me finally developing taste at 33.

did a 24x30 acrylic, sold it in a group show for 400. felt decent for like four minutes. then: frame was 190 because it's a weird size and i refuse to build my own anymore. gallery took 50%. so i'm at 105 before materials. the canvas alone was 60, and i used most of a 40 dollar tube of cad red on the background because i got carried away with it. so basically i paid to have a painting hang on a wall for three weeks. i didn't actually do the math until last night, which is the whole problem. i price by vibe and the vibe is always "what would make this feel reasonable" instead of "what does this need to be." the thing i can't decide: do i stop doing the group shows, or do i just make the work smaller and cheaper to frame. i've got six panels sitting in the corner that would fit a 40 dollar frame and i keep looking at them like cowards.

found it at a thrift store for five bucks, bad landscape, muddy colors, somebody's vacation painting they probably felt proud of. but the frame was solid wood underneath that godawful gold finish and i just stood there in the store knowing i was going to spend way too long fixing something i don't even want. and i did. sat on my floor with pliers and a flathead like some kind of idiot monk. took the thing apart completely. the painting is in the trash. the frame is stripped and sitting on my worktable and i still don't know what i'm going to put in it. this is just what i do now. rescue ugly frames from ugly paintings and fill them with my own ugly paintings. feels like a metaphor i don't want to examine too closely.

I just finished a 50x65cm interior piece for a client in Paris. Painted it over about six weeks, it came out well, one of those where everything clicked. She paid my price without blinking, €1800. Pleased with that part. Then she asked me to deliver it framed. And I thought yes, fine, I'll take care of it, I know a good framer. The frame cost €520. The glass alone was nearly €200. I ate that cost because I'd already quoted her a flat price and felt stupid going back. So my real rate for the painting dropped to €1280. And that's before the canvas, the oil, my time. I'm not sure what the solution is except to state it upfront: "Prix hors encadrement" and mean it. Or add a framing fee that's transparent. But I know myself, I'll forget to say it next time too, because I'm thinking about the painting and not the business of the painting. And then I'll be pissed off again. Anyone else have this? The hidden costs that feel too small to mention but add up to a real bite.

Getting in is the story everyone tells. I want the other one. Mine: a small space took three pieces from me years back. Contract was a handshake. Then they wanted me to frame the mosaics in these awful gold frames, because "buyers need to see it's art." Mosaics. Gold frames. I said no, they hung them anyway propped against the wall like leftover tiles, and sold one. To this day I don't know if I'm angrier about the frames or the wall. So what's your version? The thing that happened after the yes that made you think, ah, this was not the right door. Or tell me I'm wrong and the gold frames were fine 🙏

Spent three hours this morning stretching a canvas and the frame was out of square by maybe four millimetres. I knew it in my hands the minute I picked the thing up. Set it aside, stretched the canvas anyway, because I'd already mixed the ground and I didn't want to waste the afternoon. Now it's sitting in the studio leaning against the wall and I can't stop looking at the corner. Four millimetres. Nobody will ever see it. I will absolutely see it every day until I take the canvas off and do it again, which I will do tomorrow morning instead of just getting on with it, because I've never once in thirty years left a bad frame under a good painting. The thing is I knew. That's what galls me. I had the information, I made the choice, and now I get to pay for it twice. There's a whole philosophy in there about small dishonesties compounding, but right now it's mostly just a Tuesday and I'm out a morning.