What is the Value of Art?

And how are we supposed to price things that hold so much...

photo by Alana Morgan on a Moveable Feasts Retreat

Cheers!

Here’s me on a relaxing day in the Provence, France two years ago. Right now I’m sitting at my desk in my basement studio sipping tea to soothe my Fall cold while excitedly/anxiously preparing for my first ever art show outside of college. It’s been awhile - I graduated with a degree in Studio Art almost 15 years ago (OUCH, what is time?). I never thought I’d have the chance to be a working artist, though I pursed it as a degree. The desire was there but the trust in myself was lacking. Instead, most of the careers I’ve held have been driven by worry and scarcity. I never planned to become an author, though it has become a career I treasure deeply. The work itself comes from my heart. But for many years, I was pressured to write to pay for my retail business, a shared venture with others. I never wanted to be a retail business owner, I just followed opportunity in desperate pursuit of sustaining my life. I was lucky to fall in love with writing books when opportunity arose, but retail crushed me and only increased a reliance on fear to motivate me. Drive fueled by fear is exhausting and sadly comfortable if you grew up in traumatic environments. It’s a feeling I try to step away from when I am able to remain self-aware and embodied, something I’ve struggled with a bit this summer. But the practice of painting established earlier in the year has helped me through.

This spring, I decided to explore visual art again by building a weekly practice around painting. And in doing so, I have, in many ways, come back to myself. After a heavy and hard June, July became a month of painting daily. And August has been beautifully full with painting too. I painted for fun and painted to release pain. I painted to find grounding and comfort, and I painted to get outside of my head. I’ve explored a new (to me) medium and found ways to make it work for me. (I studied oil painting, watercolor, gouche, and other art mediums in college but never painted with acrylic till now.) And I’ve played with a few personal styles that I am sure will keep morphing with time, practice, and development of my work and myself.

Amidst the commitment to painting, life has also been happening. Plans have been spoiled, enormous and unexpected life changes have flung themselves into existence. My tendency to want to drop all I am doing to help save someone or something else has bubbled up at tense moments. But the urge to paint has reminded me that the only way to help others is to make sure you first take care of your own needs. This summer has been a whirlwind packed with emotional challenges, tears and heartaches, and I’m ready for change. I want my art show to be the beginning of a happier, healthier path for me. I’ve been in a chrysalis, hiding away from the outside world for a few years now. And though I’m anxious and nervous, I’m ready to move on to my next cycle of life, out in the windy world again.

First Thursday of September, the 7th, 2023

5pm - 9pm
Sew Generously Bespoke in Seattle, WA.

This art show represents so many things. It is a marking for my own end of summer tailspin. It is a visual representation of how I self soothe, realign with myself and find grounding in a disregulating world. It’s a greeting from the young-artist me welcoming grown-up me into the future I have always wanted. It is a chance for me to reintroduce myself publicly after being in hermit mode since closing my store in 2020. I’m not just creating something out of nowhere, I’m building upon a foundation I once invested my life in but abandoned to perform as a palatable American woman in the working world. By picking up my paint brushes, I’ve extended a hand to a self I’ve been missing for so long. And I am reinvesting in the self I abandoned when I first faced the reality of capitalist America. It’s so vulnerable sharing my work with you and those who will show up in person next Thursday. I’m willing to be vulnerable, willing to be scared and excited all at once. But what honestly makes me most nervous is having to put a price on each piece, and then having you judge whether you think my art is worth the price. Pricing art is a mind f*ck.

I have a wide range of pieces that will be available. From tiny little paintings the size of my hand to a painting that is almost as wide as I am tall (I’m 5’8 1/2” by the way. The half is important because I’m not as tall as my 5’9” sister, but not as short as my 5’8” sister.)

Here is one of my tiniest paintings, clocking in at 7 inches wide by 5 inches tall.

”Glowing Hills”

Acrylic Paint on Wood
Painted in 2023
And… $250.

$250.

Am I under pricing myself or overpricing the piece, or is it just right?
Sooooooooooo much goes into factoring the price of a piece of art. Different artists and galleries have different ways of calculating price. Some people use a simple math equation of :

(Hourly Wages x Hours Spent) + Cost of supplies

= _____________________________

Ok yea sure that seems simple. But how do you decide how much you should pay yourself an hour? Some people in the working world get paid just $8 an hour, year after year for hard labor. Others get paid well over $200 an hour to derp around on their computers at tech jobs. I’ve been many things, a solo jewelry maker selling on Etsy who would sometimes make $15 on an order, other times $3000 on an order. I’ve been the founder of a company with 6 people on staff and literally didn’t take any money from the company for the first 2 years while working 70+ hours a week. I’ve been a CEO in that same company with 14 people on my staff, paying myself 60k a year while staff was paid 30-60k a year depending on position. I once paid a staff member 30k a year more than me because I believed she could push our company to the next level. She did not, but I took that risk and hoped the investment was wise. I’ve had books that sold a few thousand after a few months worth of work, earning me 0 dollars in royalties, and I’ve had one book sell over 500,000 after a few months of work with 14% going to royalties back in the day. Money, wages, what your $ value is is… so random. And still, I need to price my art!

Should someone who is self taught have lower wages than someone who paid for art school? I don’t think so. What if someone couldn’t afford art school in the first place? What if painting is easier for one person than another? God, I don’t know. What if someone has spent years and years working on their craft while someone else has only been doing it for a few months? And then what does “talent” have to do with it? Again, it just feels random to me. Money is so often used as a way to make people feel bigger or less than. It’s a status thing, a klout thing, an ego thing, an elitism thing. I had the privilege of going to a 4 year college and got my degree in studio art, but I don’t think that makes me more valuable nor my work more valuable than someone else’s. I spent most of my childhood isolated, depressed and drawing, but my circumstances shouldn’t define my value. How should I financially value the years I’ve spent making art as a kid, as a college student, as a person who has designed jewelry, done graphic design, illustration, painting and more all professionally? I genuinely don’t know. But I’m trying to figure it out. and I’m letting peers in the art industry yell at me when they think I am undervaluing my work because this sh*t is confusing!

What I’ve decided to factor in to pricing my pieces comes down to this:

• I did pay for 4 years of college to earn a degree in studio art in hopes of becoming an artist some day. It took me 10 years to pay off over 30k, starting immediately after college. (Ps, v grateful I had some scholarships, grants, and financial aid on top of that.) I’d love it if a small tiny tiny tiny percentage of each piece of my art essentially went to paying myself back for that educational investment over my lifetime. No rush. But some small percent.

• I continue to pay for art classes as an adult to brush up on my skills and keep improving. I just took a course for $650, WOOF. So yea, a percentage of each painting’s price goes to furthering my education.

• A percentage of my paintings price is based on hourly wages determined by having had various careers in the arts and small business for the last 15 years.

• A percentage is based on supply costs.

• A percentage is factored in for gallery fees. The space I will be showing at on Thurs Sept 7th takes 10% of all my sales which is AMAZING in the gallery world. Most galleries take 35-50% of the sale of a piece of art. Essentially it’s like selling your products at wholesale cost to a store who then sell it at a retail price (typically a 2.0 markup.) Now again, this is tricky. Up until now I have only sold online direct to customers. And I don’t know if I will eventually show at galleries that take a higher percentage in the future. So I’m pricing my art for this show with the expectation of 10% being taken out. But prices may need to go way up if I do a show with a different gallery in time.

• When I sell art online, I need to factor in how much time it takes me to photograph or scan my art, edit out all the dust and specs, create the product listing, and add in sales tax and shipping costs. That’s all a part of selling a painting online, baby. Selling art in person is easier, but also more intimidating for an introvert like me.

• I’m also thinking about how I am early in my career of pursuing fine art - literally as of this year. I need to leave room to grow the value of my art and for improving and probably changing my style over time. That said, I also want compensation for the years I’ve invested in growing as an artist.

• Oh yeah, I need to pay for my workspace. My rent. My life. Bills. Insurance. A lawyer. Shopify. Dog stuff. Food. All that jazz which is funded by an amalgamation of stuff: book royalties, selling things on my website, paid subscriptions from substack, advising sessions, running my co-working group, whatever else I come up with… and paintings. So, another percentage for being a human who exists in a capitalism system I’d love to not be a part of but, ugh, I am.

• I need to market my paintings in various ways, a lot of time and money goes into that too!

Ok… the list could go on, so percentages end up feeling less important when I add them all up and go, no, I just don’t feel like I can charge $450 for a painting that is just 7 inches wide by 5 inches tall. Or can I? Feel free to voice your opinion in the comments. I welcome every perspective. This is hard!

Anyway, preparing for this art show is wild. Pricing stuff is wild. I am anxious, I am excited, and I’m buzzing so hard right now that I should probably tap out and go jump in a lake with my girlfriend. Which yes, I am about to do…

…………::………:………::.:…’:”:.SPLASH.:”:’……..:….::…………:…….::.:….

Hope to see you at the art show if you’re in the Seattle area :) If you do come out, please ask me if I’d like a hug, I’ll probably awkwardly laugh and say, sure and thanks :)

1. I’m diggin’ Lord Cowboy, aka Anna Fusco’s art and newsletter. I really resonated with her latest essay:

   My Dream is Not a Baby

2. I’m currently reading A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. It’s a great read if you loved the magic of Harry Potter but are bummed out by JK Rowling’s transphobia. A Deadly Education is a queer friendly, Slytherin-aligned, deep dive into a magical world.

3. I watched the Nina Simone documentary and my heart broke into a thousand pieces. Her soul translated through her music moves me. With the deeper look into her painful inner world, I’m contemplating the power of trauma, its cyclical nature, and just how important it is that we love ourselves and one another.

4. When I’m feeling big emotions, it’s easy to feel like my mind and heart are outside of my body. Here’s a playlist I made of throwback bops that get me back in my body, make me move, and put a smile on my face. You can explore more of my playlists on Spotify. I try to make at least one new playlist a month.

5. I’m adding some new features to my substack for paying subscribers! If you sign up for a paid subscription, you’ll have access to my new monthly advice column called Overshare. I’ll get into the nitty gritty of whatever you are wanting to hear, whether it’s guidance on small business, social media and marketing your work, or guidance on how to process loss and grief, advice for queer bbs, or how to paint with various paint mediums. Whatever you are curious about, I’m here to help.
   Leave a comment with something you’d like me to talk about in Overshare and maybe you’ll get a shout out + featured :)

6. My twice weekly virtual co-working group Parallel Play picks back up on Tuesdays and Thursdays in September from 9-11am PST. The group is very neurodivergent-friendly and filled with artists, designers, work-from-home folks in tech, videographers, small biz owners and more! Join in! Let’s making working from home more fun and friendly :)