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Back when I was still doing a lot of fabrication work for other artists, a friend asked me to weld a gate for his backyard. Nice guy, helped me move a block of granite once. I quoted him basically materials plus a couple hundred for my time. He was happy, I felt good about it. Five years later he wanted a matching gate for the front. Expected the same price. Then his brother heard about it. Then a neighbor. Then I'm the guy who does cheap custom ironwork for an entire neighborhood and every one of them thinks I'm gouging when I finally say no. That was the last time I did a friends-and-family price on anything. Cost me more in aggravation than I ever saved in goodwill.

I did a portrait for a close friend's father last year. Old man, beautiful face, the kind of light you want to paint. I quoted her my normal rate minus a bit, 900 plus materials, because she is a friend and I wanted to help. It took six months. Not six months of full days, but six months of my life, because she kept coming back with the frame, the lighting in the room where it hangs, could I soften the background, her mother didn't like the mouth. Every revision I ate the hours because the price was already fixed. When it was finally done I did the math out of spite. Somewhere around 4 euros an hour. My student rate in 2003 was better. The friendship is fine. But I learned something stupidly late: a discount should be a gift, not a price you set once and then can't touch. What I should have done is quote the honest price and quietly knock off a third at the end as a gift. Instead I gave away a year. Never again.

A friend from years ago asked me to paint her daughter's portrait for her 18th. I said yes at €600, already half what I'd charge a stranger for a 50x60cm oil on linen. She's a friend, fine. Then the emails started. "Could you do it from these five photos instead?" "Actually she's wearing a different dress now, can you change the colour?" "Her hair is shorter than that photo shows." "My mother thinks the background should be lighter." I repainted the face from new reference, adjusted the dress twice, scraped and repainted the background. All told I probably spent close to 25 hours on a painting that should have taken maybe 12. At my usual hourly rate for commissioned work that comes out to about €24 an hour. My assistant, who stretches canvases, makes €16. So I earned roughly the same as the person who stretches my canvases, for a job that required twenty years of training. The friend was happy. The daughter cried when she saw it. Beautiful moment. I don't regret it exactly. But I sat down afterwards and did the math and realised I'd basically given her a €1,200 painting plus a free workshop in how to manage an artist. Never again without a contract that says: one reference, one revision, anything beyond that is a new fee. Curious if anyone else has a number attached to the "learning experience" of a commission that ran away from you.

Did a linocut for a mate's mother two years back. She wanted a heron for the sitting room, lovely woman, made us dinner while the ink dried. Charged her €80 because sure, she's family-adjacent, and it was only one colour, how long could it take. Twelve hours it took. Twelve. And between the lino, the paper, the good ink, the proofing runs where the bugger wouldn't sit flat... I made about €4.50 an hour and told myself it was the gesture that mattered. Now every second cousin and neighbour's dog is looking for the "€80 heron." Two women this month alone, and one of them was genuinely offended when I said €180 for a bigger one. "But you did Joan's for eighty." Joan knows the price of bread, so she does, and she's mortified, but the cat's out of the bag. Worst part is I can't even be mad at them. I set the damn rate. If you undervalue your own work once, that's the price that follows you around for the next five years. I've had to have the awkward chat three times now and I still hate it every go. Lesson's learned anyway. Friend rate is a bottle of whiskey and a proper thank you, not a discount that pads itself into every conversation after. Sure I'm still not sure how to undo it, but I'm not doing another one at eighty. That ship has sailed.

Painted a 120x150 for an old friend's anniversary two years back. She told me, tearfully, she couldn't afford my gallery price and I said of course, don't worry, we'll find something. Named €600, which was about a third of what that size goes for. She spread the word, quietly, and for a year after that I got three more people "from her circle" who all wanted the same deal. Each one I had to find a way to say no to without making her look bad. The painting itself was good, actually maybe the best of that stretch, and part of me still resents it. Not her. Me. I set the number and I treated my own time like it was worth nothing when a friend was on the other end of it. I've started telling younger painters in the academy a simple rule I wish someone had given me: the discount should come out of your profit, not your hourly rate. Figure out your real number first, then decide how much of it you can afford to give away. If you can't afford to give it all away, you can't afford to give it at all. I know it sounds ungenerous. It's actually the only way I stayed generous at all.

I painted a portrait of my sister-in-law's mother two years ago. Almost free, obviously, family price, I think I said €150 and we both knew it was a lie. Oil, 60×80, took me close to a week of evenings. Last month she put it in a small exhibition of her own work. Not mine, hers, but the portrait was the thing people stood in front of. A gallerist asked me what I'd charge for something like that. I said a number out loud, doubled it on the spot out of embarrassment, and I could see him filing it away as cheap. The piece that got me the most genuine interest of my career is the one I practically gave away. I'm not sure I know what to do with that. It's not regret, exactly. It's the feeling that nobody will ever believe my real prices now because the best proof of what I can do is marked at a tenth of it.

So my mom's friend asked me to paint her late dog from a photo. I said yes because of course I did, and I quoted $180 which I thought was reasonable for a friends-and-family thing. It took me 14 hours. That's like $12.85 an hour before materials, and I used good paper and maybe $30 of paint so really I paid for the privilege. Worst part is she keeps telling people I was "so sweet" to do it for her. Sweet. Like I did them a favor instead of doing my actual job. And now two of her friends have asked about portraits of their dogs and I have no idea what to charge because I set the bar at "sweet girl who paints dogs cheap." I know people here do the full "everyone deserves art" thing and I genuinely believe art should be accessible, but I'm one month into full time and I did the math on my real hourly rate across all my work this month and it's depressing. I don't know how to tell this woman I love that the next dog portrait is $350 minimum without sounding like I got greedy. Anyone else stuck in the friends-and-family trap? How did you get out without burning the relationship?

Back in the lean years I took a restoration job that paid a commission, not a flat fee. The contractor was a friend, the project was a Byzantine floor in a small church up near Kilkis, genuinely interesting work, and I was eating rice and beans so I said yes without asking the number that mattered. Eight months on my knees, in and out, matching tesserae that some other hand had set in the 6th century. Lovely job. When it was done he came by with a cheque and it all felt very brotherly until I did the division in my head driving home. €2.10 an hour. I knew the whole time it was cheap. I didn't know it was that cheap. I think some part of me didn't want to do the math because then I'd have to leave, and the work was the only thing keeping me sane in that period. I still take friends-and-family work at a discount sometimes. But I always write down the hourly number before I start, in the margin of the sketch, so I can't pretend later. If it comes out under minimum wage I either raise it or pass. The church floor was worth doing. The price was not.

So there's a new place opened down near the docks, lovely spot, they wanted a big linocut for the main wall, something of Galway Bay, rough sea, the whole bit. I was delighted with myself. Gave them the friends-and-family rate because they're sound and I wanted the work up somewhere people'd see it. €600, I said. Frame included. Generous, I thought. What I didn't do was keep a proper tally of the hours. Carving that thing, it's a big block, 60x40cm, all that water and sky and the little light breaking through, took me the guts of three weeks on and off. Proofing it, pulling the final edition, stretching the paper, framing it myself. Did the maths this morning. Roughly 40 hours all in. That's €15 an hour, and that's before materials, before the frame cost me sixty quid, before the petrol driving it down there. I'm not even angry about it, I'm just looking at the number and thinking, I'd have been better paid stacking shelves. But I'd also have been bored out of my skull, so there you go. Anyway the print looks savage up on the wall. I'll put the price up next time and see do I survive it.