Have the last few months been busy enough, especially with three exhibitions tumbling on top of one another?! You might have been painting like crazy, re-working like crazy, framing like crazy and dropping off/picking up like crazy, but exhibitions are one of the many motivating reasons to paint. Besides choosing mat color and frame type one of the big decisions when exhibiting our work is pricing our work; so many thoughts on the topic, below are a few.
“I always price it as high as I think I can possibly sell it for, because I don’t want to give it away and I’m worth it!”
–There are two true things, as I see it…we shouldn’t give our Art away and…We are all certainly worth it! But pricing a piece as high as possible, might preclude an interested buyer with shallow pockets.
“I price by the square inch”
–I have always been puzzled by this; So a really bad large painting is worth more than one of those wonderful little small works gems? And there’s always that “sofa size painting”.
“I price them depending on the venue. A gallery can demand a higher price, than a street fair.”
–Makes sense to me, and I guess if you are represented by a gallery, you wouldn’t be hanging in a street fair.
“I price as low as I can stand to, while covering framing and commission, I’d rather someone take it to their house at an affordable price, than take it back to my house and add it to my pile. Sometimes the happiest customer is one who takes home an original piece of Art at a price they can afford.”
–Makes total sense to me, because I’m the one who said it! I agree with an above comment, “we shouldn’t give our Art away and we are worth it”; but where is the middle ground? I have seen a happy customer, many times, who took home one of my paintings (mostly plein air events). They reported that they loved the painting and were happy that they could afford it. Several have reappeared year after year to buy another and it makes me happy that my affordable paintings are hanging on someone else’s walls instead of mine.
I know all of us have piles of unsold painting, all great in their own respect, some have even won awards, so what to do? Maybe an Exhibition of “Leftovers”?
We are individual and unique creative creatures, with our own unique and creative opinions. What to do about pricing is up to each one of us, the above is just “paint” for thought. The bottom line, just keep painting!
~Linda Flannery
Wise words and helpful suggestions!
I have a standard price for quarter sheet and half sheet.Some take longer to execute than others, but it rounds out in the end. I keep the price low enough that most people taking one of my workshops can afford it. I don’t do prints, so the only thing available is original. I pulled out of galleries years ago so that I didn’t have the ethical problem of undercutting my gallery representation. I like the fact that the work goes mostly to people with a passion to learn even if it means not being in the high art circle of collectors and critics. I get to paint for myself.