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I had a piece in a group show last spring. Small gallery, decent neighborhood foot traffic. They took 40% commission. That's fine, I know the deal, rent's real. But I also had to pay for my own framing. Print the postcards myself. Supply the wine for the opening. They asked if I could "activate my network" on social and tag them in stories every day leading up to it. So I'm paying to make the work, paying to present it, doing their marketing for them, and they take 40% of whatever sells. And I walked away thinking I was lucky to be there. I don't have a tidy conclusion. I'm still trying to figure out which part of this is normal and which part is getting played. Because I keep hearing about how the model is broken for artists but I don't see a lot of alternatives that aren't just "go viral on tiktok" which is its own kind of nonsense.

So a Barcelona-based clothing brand reached out, they wanted to use photos of my pieces styled with their new collection for a lookbook. I thought cool, my wonky little ceramic heads next to nice linen, why not. They offered 400€ and a bunch of clothes, I said yes. The second I posted the announcement, the comments were... not mean exactly but disappointed. Like I was selling out. "Oh so we're doing fast fashion now?" "Mateo no." A couple people said it felt off-brand. And ok, I get it. But also, I'm 27, my kiln is held together with wire, and 400€ is 400€. The brand is small, Spanish, not Zara. They make stuff by hand too, different material but same energy. I felt good about it until I didn't. I don't know. I still think independent artists and independent brands can help each other without it being gross. But the reaction made me second-guess everything. Has anyone else done a collab that felt right but your audience just wasn't there with you? How do you tell the difference between selling out and just... making rent?

After a decade of charging what I thought was reasonable, 800€ for a 40x50cm oil, I finally did what my husband's been telling me to do for years and raised them to 1,100€ for the same format. Same canvas, same hours, same me. Just finally stopped apologising for what I ask. I lost one client. A woman who'd bought three paintings from me over the years, always asked for a small discount, always got one. She sent a polite email saying she couldn't justify the increase. I wrote back, equally polite, that I understood completely. And honestly? The relief of not painting for someone who sees your work as something to bargain over is worth the lost sale. The other clients didn't blink. One said she'd been waiting for me to raise them. That stung more than the loss, in a good way. I know the numbers are different for everyone, different city, different medium, different audience. But I wish someone had told me ten years ago that the fear of losing clients is usually worse than the reality. The ones who value what you do will stay. The ones who don't were already costing you more than they paid.