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I've shown with the same gallery in Berlin for twelve years. When we started, I signed their standard agreement without really reading the resale and secondary-market clauses. Stupid, I know. You think you're being gracious, above the business, and you're really just being careless with your own livelihood. Last spring a collector who bought two big canvases from me in 2016 sold one at auction for nearly four times what he paid. Fine, that's his right, that's the market, whatever. But then I learned my contract gives the gallery a cut of that resale, a percentage that runs indefinitely. Not to me. To them. For a painting I made and they sold once, a decade ago. I did the math on it. That one resale paid them more than my last three new commissions combined. And I sat there feeling petty for even noticing, because they were good to me when I was nobody. But nobody works for free, and I have a family. I raised it with them, gently, at our last meeting. The director went a little quiet and then said we could "look at restructuring" for new works. New works. The two paintings already out there, nothing to be done. I don't know what I'm asking here. Maybe just that someone who's been at this longer than me tell me whether this is normal, whether I'm the fool for not having read the fine print at 34, or whether everybody learns this exact lesson the same way and at the same cost.

A panel, 20 by 30 cm. A little olive tree, smalti and salvaged stone, the kind of thing I can hold in two hands. I quoted 340 euros to a woman who found me through a friend of a friend, and she came back with "but it's only small, can you do 150?" Here is the thing about small. Small is not less work. Small is the same hands, the same cutting, the same three kilos of tesserae sorted by tone before I set one of them down. The size of the finished piece has almost nothing to do with the hours. If anything I lose money on small work because the setup eats a bigger share of it. I said no, and I said it kindly, and I explained the hours once. Not a lecture, just the arithmetic. She went quiet for two days and then wrote back and took it at 340. I am not posting this to be praised for holding the line. I am posting it because I nearly said yes. I stood in my kitchen at eleven at night doing sums in my head and thinking, well, 150 is 150. That is the actual danger. The number is small enough that you can talk yourself into it and then you have taught someone what your work costs. What I want to know is how the rest of you answer the size argument, because mine is getting tired and I would like a better one.

First gallery that wanted my work. Small place, nice enough. Owner walks the show, stops at every piece, says she loves the work. Then she asks if I can make the pieces smaller. And lighter. And maybe in a different material. She basically wanted a different sculptor. I said no and that was the end of it. Probably cost me a show but I figure you show them what you do or you don't. Anyone else had a gallery try to reshape your work into something it isn't? Did you bend or walk?

Namaste to all. Myself Ramesh, Mithila painting from Madhubani, and I am fairly new to this online talking. My question is this. In my work there is the traditional thing. Fish, peacock, the wedding of Shiva and Parvati, kohbar for the marriage chamber. This is what my mother taught me and her mother before. Then there is the simpler work. Small fish, plain border, bright, easy to carry home, and this sells faster. So the galleries and the middlemen, they say to me, make more of the simple one, this is what the customer will buy. I have done it sometimes. Money is money and the house is running. But each time I feel some heaviness inside. So I want to ask the artists here, not the gallery people. Have you ever told a gallery no when they asked you to change your work for the market? What did you say, and did they drop you or not? And if you did change, was it worth it or you regret. One more small thing. I told one gallery in Delhi I will not remove the kohbar line from the border because that line is not decoration, it is for the marriage blessing. He laughed. I still did not remove it. That is my answer, kindly give yours.

Mine took a small piece because it fit a wall by the stairs. Nobody said a word about the technique I'd spent a month on. I was insulted for about a week and then I realised they were right, it worked there. So what did your first gallery actually say yes to, and what did they completely ignore? The thing you were proudest of, or the thing that just happened to fit? I'll go first again: years later I still send them small work for awkward spaces. It's become the whole relationship.

I don't do a lot of gates. Forge work, small stuff, brackets and railings. But a neighbor down the road wanted a gate for the side of his house and asked what I'd charge. I said 4,800 and thought that was fair money. Steel was 900. That's the cut sheet, tube and flat bar, one delivery. Then I stood in the shop for six days. Cutting, fitting, tacking, squaring, correcting the square because the frame pulled, welding it out, grinding, wire brushing, two coats of primer and a topcoat, letting it cure, then hauling it over in the truck and hanging it with two of us because it's a heavy bastard and the posts weren't plumb to begin with. Six days at the bench plus a day of finishing and a half day hanging, and I was in it about 2,600 in materials and consumables. So call it 2,200 for eight days of my life before anybody takes a bite. That's under 300 a day for work that will still be standing when I'm not. I knew the number was soft when I said it out loud. I said it anyway because he's a neighbor and because I'm still figuring out what to charge for the things I don't do often. The work I do every week I can price in my sleep. The work I do twice a year, I guess, and I guess low. It's hung. It's straight. He's happy. I learned what a gate costs me, and it's not 4,800.

first gallery that ever showed interest in my work, small space, local, I was thrilled, and the owner asked if I could "scale down" my pieces so they'd fit the wall layout better. I did it. made a whole series at like 12x16 inches. they sold okay but I hated every single one of them. never again. what's the weirdest thing a gallery has asked you to change about your work to fit them? and did you do it or walk?

My granddaughter ordered me labels. Woven ones, my name and the year, "Gloria Mae" on a little folded tag. I've been sewing near about sixty one years, since I was seven on my grandmother's porch, and I have never once signed a quilt. She said folks need to know whose hands it was. So this morning I sat down with a small quilt top I made out of my mother's church dresses, three of them, the navy and the gray and that green she wore every Easter until she couldn't anymore. I sewed the label on the back corner, down in the ditch so you'd have to look for it. Took me four tries to get it on straight. My hands don't do small work like they did. Then I just sat there with it in my lap a while. It felt like signing something I didn't write, if that makes any sense. My grandmother never signed hers either. Nobody asked her to. And I'm glad somebody wants to know, I truly am. But I kept thinking, baby it's already got her in it. The green's right there. I left it on. Went and made coffee. Still don't know if it's staying.

First gallery that ever took my work, small place down the country, fella ran it out of a converted shed near the sea. Took six linocuts on consignment, sold two in eight months, paid me eventually. Nothing glamorous. But I was buzzing for weeks after he said yes, d'you know that feeling? Like someone finally saw the thing you'd been doing in a room on your own and said that'll do. What was yours? The first gallery that gave you a shot, how'd it happen, what were the terms, was it as grand as you'd hoped or a bit of a let-down? Love to hear the stories.

For two years I answered every inquiry by hand. Somebody asks about a small still life, I write back with the price, the shipping, the framing options, three paragraphs. Half of them disappear after that message. Not a no, just silence. In September I was behind on a commission and fed up, so I put the numbers directly on the site. Small works, medium, the two large ones. Prices visible, no "contact for pricing." I expected it to kill the interest. It did the opposite. The emails got shorter and better. "Is the 40x50 still available, I can pay half now." That kind of thing. Fewer people, more of them serious. I sold three in six weeks, which for me is a lot. What I lost: nobody haggles anymore, and I liked the little dance of it, honestly. What I gained: I stopped doing unpaid work for strangers who were only ever curious. The part that stings a bit is that I spent two years convincing myself the secrecy was protecting me. It was just making me tired.

I've been on the same portrait for almost three weeks now. Not the whole portrait, the jaw. Left side, the shadow under it, where it turns toward the neck. There is a specific thing I want there, a softness, and I keep getting it and then losing it in the next stroke. Soft pastel is unforgiving in this one way that keeps humbling me. You can't glaze over a mistake and pretend. You lift it with tape, you go back in, and the paper is a little more tired each time. I'm on Fabriano Tiziano, the grey, and at this point that whole corner has been worked so hard it's gone shiny. New pastel slides off it. So now the fix is to stop, and I don't want to stop, because stopping means admitting I have to start this one again. I know the problem is that I'm painting the jaw from thinking instead of from looking. But that's the easy sentence to write. The hard part is that I can no longer see which of the five versions was the true one, I've stared so long. I put it against the mirror and it looks fine. I photograph it and it looks dead. Which do you trust? For what it's worth the ear on that side finally works. Small mercy.

Today I want to tell one thing which made me very happy, so kindly bear with me. There is a girl in my class, Sunita, maybe fourteen years. When she first came she would sit at the very back and would not lift the brush. Her lines were shaking, and she used to hide the paper under her leg so nobody would see. Some of the other girls laughed also. I did not scold anybody, only I told her, bamboo nib is not to be afraid of, it is only a small stick, if your hand trembles the line will tremble, so first make your mind quiet, then the line. For many months she only did the border work. Straight lines, small dots, the easy things. Honestly I thought maybe she will leave the class like so many do when the school exams come. Today she came early, before everyone, and put down a full sheet. Kohbar, the marriage chamber painting, complete. The lotus in the centre, the fish pair, the bamboo grove, the sun and moon in the corners. Her line is still not steady everywhere, I can see where the hand stopped and started again. But she has done the whole thing herself, and the proportion is correct. That much I can say with straight face. I have been doing this work since I was small, learning from my mother, and still I will say this. When a child who was frightened of the brush completes a kohbar, that is a bigger thing than any sale I have made. Money comes and goes in this work, that is one separate sorrow. But the form going forward, into hands younger than mine, that is the real question for all of us. I have kept her painting carefully in the cupboard, wrapped in cloth, because the paper is still new and the colours are setting. Her mother does not know yet. She wants to show when the whole family sits together on Sunday. I told her, do one thing, do not touch it again with the brush now, let it be as it is. First work should stay first work, with all its small mistakes, so that after ten years you can look back and see how far your hand has come. Now she is asking me for a bigger sheet. So I am thinking, for the girls who finish their first kohbar, maybe we should do something small, a proper ceremony, sindoor and sweets, like we do when a student is given her first needle. If anybody here has done such a thing in their own teaching, I would like to hear how you did it.

Today my old lamp stopped working. That small bulb I have been using since years, since my son first set up this corner for me. I thought I will just work without it for some time. But the light was different, softer, and for the first time I noticed the colours on the paper are not at all what they look under that bulb. The red was deeper, the blue more true. I have been painting with this light for so long I forgot what the colours really are. Maybe it is the same with the work itself. You sit in one way of seeing for years and you think that is the truth. Then something small moves and you see again fresh. I fixed the lamp after some time, of course. But I kept the new bulb dimmer than before. Some things are better not brought back to the old brightness. 🙏

Small thing that worked, and I feel a bit dumb about how long it took me. I paint at night, usually 9 to 11, and I'd been posting finished pieces on my page. Nice enough, a dozen or so likes, nothing moving. In March I started posting the mess instead. Palette with three days of dried paint on it. The jar of water that's basically mud. One photo of my 11 year old's spelling list sitting under the canvas because that's the only clean paper in the house. I don't know why that did it but it did. Two people messaged asking if I teach, which I do not, and a woman asked if she could buy the small barn piece before I'd even said anything about selling it. That's never happened to me off a finished photo. The annoying part is the finished photos still do nothing. I put the same barn piece up after, nicely lit, and it got nine likes and one comment from my aunt. I keep wondering if I've just trained people to want the mess and now I have to keep finding messes to photograph, which sounds like a second job. Also my table is genuinely gross and I'm not sure I want that to be my brand. Anyone else had something take off that you didn't mean to post?

Something I want to share with you all. For many years I am sending my paintings to the cooperative in Patna, and from there sometimes they go to Delhi, once to Kolkata. That much only. My son keeps saying Baba, put on internet, people are buying from all countries. I was doubtful, honestly, because the work is small and made on paper by hand, not any big thing to see. But last month a lady from Hamburg wrote to me. She had seen one of my paintings of the marriage of Gauri and Shiva, kachni style, only line work, no colour filling, three weeks of work with a brush of one or two hair. She wrote that she wanted one for her mother, and she said please do only in that old line style, not with the bright filling which is now common. I sat quiet for some time after reading that. Because this is what my mother used to do. The colour work sells faster, buyers like it, and I also have to make it, no shame in that. But the pure kachni line, that is the mother's hand, so to say. Nobody was asking for it since long. I had nearly stopped doing it except for puja time. So I did one. Small, on handmade paper, line only, fish at the border, and I sent it after eleven days. She wrote back only two lines, that her mother had put it on the wall next to the door. I do not know if this is a big win. The money was not much, and I spent more on the courier than I wanted. But somebody in another country, who never met my mother, asked for her style by name. That felt like something. I am thinking now to keep one corner of the work always for the old line style, even if no buyer comes for months.

I spent years emailing galleries the way you're supposed to, brief, professional, a link to my work, a polite request to be considered. Got nowhere. Then I tried something different: I sent one gallery director a handwritten letter on good paper, with a small original study tucked inside, a lily I'd painted from their city's botanical garden. She called me the same week. I'm not sure I'd recommend that approach to everyone, and it probably only worked because my work is small and botanical and the gesture fit. But it made me wonder what actually cuts through. What's the one email, or approach, that actually got you a reply?

In Mithila painting the fish is not just a fish. It is the sign of plenty, of the bride's house, of water that gives life. I have painted it since I was a boy sitting beside my mother. So you would think the eye is easy by now. But this week I made a small piece for a buyer in Delhi, a wedding gift they said, and I painted the fish three times and tore each one. The body, the scales, the fine lines, all fine. The eye. The eye came out dead every time. Too round and it is a doll. Too thin and it is angry. The fish looks like it is not seeing anything. My mother used to say the eye is where the fish remembers the river. I sat with that all evening. Then I stopped trying to make it perfect and I made it the way she used to, a small curve like a comma, almost careless. My hand remembered before my mind did. Why is it that the thing we know best is the thing that betrays us most? I am curious if others here also have one motif, one small part, that has been your enemy since the beginning no matter how many years. Not the big work. The small thing nobody else would even notice.

The edition is 12 and I have been at the same zinc plate since Thursday. The image is fine. The problem is that I keep pulling proofs to check the bite and then keeping the ones that are "nice", and now I have eleven nice prints and no idea which one is the print. My printer friend says this is the whole point of an edition, that the multiplicity is the work, the small differences are the variable. I know the theory. I have read the theory. I have even written about the theory. But at 1am in the studio with a fan going and my hands black to the wrist, the theory feels like something I say to other people. In practice I am standing there choosing between eleven nearly identical sheets like a woman picking tomatoes, and every one of them is a little bit wrong in a different place. The third one has a softer edge on the left where the felt slipped. The eleventh has a cleaner line and less atmosphere. I like the third. I should not like the third, because liking the third is liking a mistake, and then what do I do, print eleven more mistakes on purpose? I am also aware, and this is the part that actually bothers me, that if I frame the third one and call it the definitive state, it becomes the original, and the other ten become copies of it, and I have spent eleven years arguing that this is a lie.

Mine: a small space in Oslo asked for a 900 kr "hanging contribution" per piece and said it was normal. I said no. Still wonder if I was being precious about it. What's the red flag you saw and went ahead anyway? And did it ever turn out fine, or was it exactly what it looked like.

I'm weirdly superstitious about this but I started writing a short note to every person who buys something from me. Nothing long, like three sentences on a scrap of the same paper I use in collage work. Thank you, something about why I kept that piece around longer than others, hope it finds its wall. It's been maybe four months now. The thing that's getting me is the replies. People write back. Not always, but often enough that it's shifted something. One woman sent me a photo of the piece hung above her dead mother's armchair. Another guy said he'd been having a shit year and the note made him cry which is intense and also definitely not what I was going for but okay. Here's the part I don't know how to think about: it's not scalable. Obviously. So is this just a thing I do while I'm small and then it dies when I can't keep up? Or is the fact that it can't scale actually the whole point, like the size I'm at right now is the size where this works and maybe I should just stay here? I don't have an answer. Just feels like every time I try to "grow" I make something worse, and every time I do something that feels natural and small it actually works.