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The Price Is The Price; Pricing Your Art And Sticking To It

You know how everyone eventually gets those handful of moments in their art career that stick out to them the most? Mine came last year at a solo show I had.

The show happened in March 2023. I put together a solo show at the Kava Bar in Fayetteville. Every month they have an artist of the month who brings in their art and gets it all set up to have an opening reception the first Friday of the month. Their artwork stays up that entire month and they get to keep 100% of the sales they make. My March show was called “Cosmic AF” and featured my galaxy series.

It was a great night! The music was a vibe, I sold some prints, mingled with some friends who came, and even started live painting a new galaxy piece.

The kava bar is a place that already has a crowd of people in an out, they draw in a pretty decent amount of patrons. So there were people in and out, some that came for the show, some who were just visiting the business. At one point throughout the night I noticed a couple lingering around my “Cosmic Goddess” piece, so I went over to them to talk about it since it piqued their interest.

We chatted a bit and I told them my inspiration and what the piece meant to me (I’ll write another separate article and get into that some other time). The woman of the couple was really sweet and engaged with me about it, but the man, he had his own thoughts.

He begins talking and eventually gets around to saying “It’s a really nice piece, but I don’t think it’s worth that price.” GASP! LOL!

“Cosmic Goddess” is an original 30inch x 40inch acrylic on canvas painting, which I priced at $1200. When he made his statement I felt like all the motivational art, business, and self development podcasts that I had been listening to over the last 2 years had prepared me for that. My response was, “Uh okay”, as I grinned and continued talking, mainly to the woman.

Eventually we end our conversation and I go back to talking with my friends and mingling with other visitors. The night drew to a close and as I was taking my live painting materials back to my vehicle the couple stops me as I walk past them. The man says “I just want to apologize for what I said earlier about your work. You do amazing work and it IS worth that much.” I respond, “I know!”, and continue taking my things to my vehicle.

The best part about my response was that it didn’t come from a place of inflated ego. It came from a place of understanding. Understanding about my work, my worth, and my value as an artist. (Not only that, I had an actual formula that I use to come up with the price so despite his comment, it’s not like I pulled the price out of thin air.)

Had this happened 2 or 3 years prior I would have taken his comment about the price to heart and felt like I should change the price. But up until that point I had done a lot of internal work, work that made me confront beliefs I had about my worth and my work AND came to understand that everyone isn’t your audience. That’s okay.

I go to museums and look at some of the art and wonder why some it is there but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve to be there. Clearly it resonated with someone enough to be put in a museum collection. I’m not the audience for those pieces…and that’s okay.

Fast forward to November of 2023, myself and a local artist friend of mine, Shelley, put our duo show at the Kava Bar. Our duo show featured artwork from both of us with a theme focused on galaxies and women. Our first show took place at Mount Sequoyah in August 2023, then we moved it to the Kava bar a few months later.

So my work, including “Cosmic Goddess” and a few new pieces were back at the Kava bar! Toward the end of November someone came and expressed interest in “Cosmic Goddess”. She said she had seen it at the duo sho in August and came to the opening reception at the Kava bar in November and saw it again and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

After asking a couple questions about the price and if I was able to repair a couple of areas on her where it looked like paint had rubbed off, she said she wanted to buy it…for the $1200 that I had it listed for! BOOM!

We agreed that she would pay half then and half when it was delivered to her and just like that “Cosmic Goddess” had found a new home!

The funny part about this is that a year before she finally sold, I had several people come and ask about her and at one point I was even willing to let her go for $400. She never sold, not even for $400. Was this the price the man at my show would have been happier about? Was this a price he would have paid for the piece? The answer to both of those questions is probably not. He had comments about a piece that I couldn’t even (practically) GIVE away for $400, a piece that he more than likely wouldn’t have purchased anyway.

My point behind this whole story is that, not everyone is going to be your audience. You can’t make work and price things that will make everyone happy. The right buyers will find you in time. Being patient and firm on your worth will attract those buyers that you seek.