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ok so I've been full time since January and I've sent plenty of invoices by now, no big deal right? But yesterday I invoiced a real client, like, a gallery. For a commission. And I sat there staring at the "send" button for a solid three minutes which is ridiculous because I am a 26 year old woman not a baby deer. I kept thinking what if they see the number and go ??? who does she think she is. Even though we literally agreed on the price beforehand?? My brain is broken. Anyway I sent it and then immediately painted a very bad very aggressive watercolor of a teapot to calm down haha. And my partner came home and I made them read the invoice back to me like I couldn't trust my own eyes. They were very patient about it. I know this is small potatoes compared to what some of y'all are out here doing but it felt huge. Like oh I'm actually doing this. Freelance artist. That's my job now. Terrifying and good.

I have this one recurring client who's otherwise fine to work with, pays eventually, doesn't micromanage. But without fail, every single time, right before I'm about to send the final invoice, like the night before, I get a text. "Hey just checking, can you do $X instead?" X being about 30% less than what we agreed on months ago. It's never during the process. Never when we're discussing materials or size or how many hours this is going to take. Always at the very end when they know I'm emotionally ready to be done with it and just want to move on. I held the line the last two times. Said no, this was the price we agreed on, here's the invoice. And they paid it. So why do I still feel like the asshole for not giving a discount? Why does saying "no" to someone who's literally asking for a lower price than what they themselves agreed to feel like I'm being difficult? Anyway I'm waiting for the text any day now on the current piece. Already have my reply drafted. Just tired of having to have the same conversation.

Okay so I've been trying this thing where I actually send invoices the day the work ships, instead of waiting weeks and pretending it's fine. First time trying it, client replied "let's circle back next week!" and now it's been a month and I've sent two gentle follow-ups and nothing. I know the lesson is supposed to be "put a number on it up front, get a deposit" and I did do that part, which is honestly why I'm not spiraling. The deposit covered materials and most of my time. But the balance is sitting there and it's the amount I was counting on for studio rent and I keep opening my email like a fool hoping there's money in it. The wild part is this person was so nice the whole time. Gushed about the piece, sent photos of it framed in their hallway. Then just... went silent the second money was due. I'm starting to think the "they're being polite" read and the "they're dodging" read can look exactly the same from where I'm sitting. Anyone else deal with this? Do you chase people or just eat the loss and never work with them again? I've got maybe one more follow-up in me before I do the passive aggressive thing of posting a painting and tagging their house lol. Not that I would. But I get it now.

Okay so I've been telling myself for months that I'd approach some local shops about carrying my prints and cards, just small ones, the cute plant shop on my corner, a bookstore I love. And I kept chickening out because sending a cold email with prices feels so much scarier than just posting on Instagram where people come to you. But last week I finally just walked into the bookstore with a little portfolio and asked if they had five minutes. The owner was so nice she almost made me cry?? She said yes on the spot, picked four designs, and I spent the weekend hyperventilating over formatting a proper invoice. Sent it this morning. Then my partner found me on the kitchen floor and I had to explain that no I wasn't sad, this is just what success feels like apparently. Anyway if anyone else has done the wholesale thing for the first time, how long until you stop feeling like you're going to get caught doing something you're not supposed to?? Asking for a friend who is me.

omg you guys i actually did it i sent the invoice for that big commission i finished last week. i was so nervous about it honestly, like what if they think it's too much or they ghost me or something?? but my partner was like 'just send it Dani you did the work!' and they were so right haha. it feels SO good to have it out of my hands and just like, trust that it'll get paid. fingers crossed it all goes smoothly! this is such a huge step for me going full-time, it feels so real and terrifying and amazing all at once. anyway, just wanted to share a small win!! 🙏

Okay so I finally snapped and did the thing we all joke about. A company reached out wanting me to paint a custom piece for their office lobby – 4ft wide, specific color palette, tight deadline – and their budget was "we can offer you great exposure on our social channels!" I get it, I'm small, I'm new at this full-time thing, I know how it goes. But I was just so tired. So I wrote up a proper invoice. Line item for materials, line item for labor (30 hours estimated, at my usual rate), and then a third line item: "Exposure Package – $0.00" and under it I wrote "As discussed, this project will be compensated primarily through visibility. Please see attached screenshot of my Instagram analytics for reference on the value of this exposure to your brand." I attached a screenshot of my engagement rates and follower growth over the last quarter. And I sent it. Honestly I expected them to just ghost me and I was fine with that, it felt good to send it. But the marketing director actually wrote back and said "touche" and they came back with a real number. Not a great number, not gonna lie, it was still kind of low. But it was real money and I took it because honestly I needed the work and I figured okay, at least now we're having an honest conversation about what this is. I don't know if I'd do it again, it felt a little snotty. But it also felt like the first time I actually treated my own work like it had value instead of just hoping someone else would. Anyone else done something petty that actually kind of worked??

Six months it took to get paid for a portrait. I had almost written the money off, the usual French bitterness about commerce, and then the woman who owed it sent me to two friends and a gallery owner who now shows my work in Geneva. Not because I chased her. Because I kept painting for her while she didn't pay. She remembered that. I think we are too quick to cut people at the first late invoice. Some of the best relationships I have started with a payment that made me grind my teeth. I am not saying let people walk over you. I am saying a bad payer is not necessarily a bad patron. And a fast payer is not necessarily a friend of your work either. The gallery that strings you along for months will sometimes be the one that sells everything. The client who is slow with the check will sometimes be the one who builds your whole next year. The correlation between promptness and generosity is weak. I wish someone had told me that at thirty.

had a piece in a group show last spring and someone bought it opening night. first time a stranger paid four figures for something i made. felt like i'd done something wrong so i kept the price low for months after, $200, $350, like i was apologizing for the nerve of charging real money. finally bumped everything up this fall. not stupid high, just... what i'd need to make it worth pulling all-nighters and buying real materials instead of dumpster cardboard. lost about 40% of my instagram followers in the next three weeks. the algorithm punished me or whatever. but the people who stayed? they're the ones who actually buy. or share. or send a note that isn't "love this, wish i could afford it." i'd rather have 300 people who get it than 3,000 who treat my feed like a museum gift shop they're just browsing. still feels weird every time i type a number into an invoice. like i'm about to get caught.

Had a piece ready for welding last month, a big steel armature that needed a structural weld I couldn't do in my own shop. Got a quote from a foundry I've used before for $600. Dropped it off. Picked it up and the invoice was $1,200. Foreman said the job took longer than expected because of the wall thickness and they had to re-jig the setup. No call to warn me, no authorization. Just the work done and the new price. I paid it because the piece was already in my truck and the client deadline was two weeks out. But I sat in the parking lot for five minutes first. That's the part I keep thinking about. Not whether they were right or wrong. Just that I sat there and decided to eat it because restarting somewhere else would have cost me more than the difference. Still don't know if that was smart or weak. Probably both.

Sold a 150×180 oil and cold wax earlier this year for €1,800. Gallery took their 50 percent, shipping was on me, the stretcher and canvas and pigment alone came to close to €500. So the studio net was roughly €400 for maybe six weeks of work, most days in there. What I can't get past is that €1,800 felt like a lot to ask. It isn't. I know painters charging three times that for smaller canvas who sell out before the opening. And I sat with the invoice for a week before I sent it, adjusting the words so it wouldn't sound rude. The buyer wanted the work. They never blinked. I was the only one ashamed of the number, and I don't fully understand where that comes from. Maybe from the old academy idea that you don't talk money in the studio, from growing up in a system where the whole thing was meant to be beyond price. But the rent is not beyond price. I raised the next one to €2,200. Felt like I was committing a fraud. Genau, that's where I am.

Last year a museum in Germany asked me to do a talk and a small intervention in their permanent collection. Three days of work plus prep. They had a budget. I told them not to worry about it. I don't even have a good reason. I respected the institution. I liked the curator. I wanted to seem generous. So I just said don't worry about it and ate the time. My son found out and gave me this look. Not angry. Just disappointed in a way that was worse. He said you always tell me to value my work and then you do this. I sat with that for a while. I'm still sitting with it. The thing is I know exactly why I did it. There's a part of me that still thinks if I'm not being paid it means I'm doing it for the right reasons. Which is a stupid romantic holdover from the 80s when nobody had any money anyway. Now I have a studio to run and materials to buy and a grown son who watches me undermine myself. I charged them eventually. Six months later. Sent an invoice with a note saying I reconsidered. They paid it without a word. But I still feel the embarrassment of that first conversation. Not the embarrassment of asking for money. The embarrassment of being too afraid to ask for it.

Just finished the final invoice for that large mixed-media piece. Spent 3 weeks on it, materials were way more than I budgeted (who knew salvaged lace would get so pricey?), and my hourly rate worked out to something like $8 an hour. I’m almost afraid to raise my prices, but this isn’t sustainable. Feels like I'm stealing from myself.

Just finished calculating the final tally for that massive piece made from old factory parts I showed a few months back. The raw materials were almost nothing, of course. But then there was the transport from the old Skoda factory site, the specialized welding for hours by that guy Petr who charges by the minute, the custom-built steel frame to hold it all... I looked at the invoice and my first thought was 'Is this a joke?' It came out to 85,000 CZK before I even thought about my own time. Nearly fainted. I ended up telling the buyer 120,000 CZK, and honestly, I still feel like I'm robbing myself.

my studio smells like that right now. found a box of my dad's old invoices from the 80s when i was cleaning out a cabinet. torn edges, faded ink. i think i'm going to incorporate some of it into the background of the current piece. it feels right, somehow. like bringing a ghost into the room.