Selling stuff
http://www.greendoor.org.uk/art-trail/
It is the Green Door Art Trail this weekend and I am taking part. It is the first time that I have let the outside world into my studio and more importantly tried to sell my work to try and support myself. I have sold work in the past via the internet but I did that at cost because I was still working.
Now it is a lot more real. I have listened to the other artists who have several years of Art Trail experience. Based on this I have I have a range of cards, mounted open prints and finally framed limited edition prints. Everything has arrived and has been put in place on the walls. However today I started labelling and pricing the items. For the smaller items, cards and mounted prints that was reasonably easy I just did cost plus a markup. I kind of knew that I was trying to price products to achieve a certain price point. Where I really struggled though was the limited edition framed prints. These really matter to me and they are the key part of what I want to achieve with my photography. I am not trying to achieve a price point I am trying to value my best work at a value that somehow relates to its merit and give me a fighting chance of making a living. The basics were easy enough, I could work out the costs of the materials. But what value for the pure creative element of the work? My finance background does not help. You can’t work on the hours spent researching a site or the number of hours spent going back and waiting for the right light. So I resorted to a bit of research on the web. Most of what I found related to open edition prints and really just confirmed that my price for the mounted prints was ok. Then I ended up looking at some high end photography websites and galleries. This was just daunting and did not really help as they were way above my league. So I did what I always do when I am struggling and went to Costa for an espresso and a think.
So in the end I came up with a solution. I just decided on a price that I would like to achieve for my work. I kind of threw all my inputs into the pot and boiled them up. The result was something that I would be happy to achieve for my key work.
I don’t feel happy about this state of affairs. I come from a background where I have always been able to apply a set of rules/costs to a problem and the answer will come out at the end. I have never worked with something as intangible as the price of individual creativity. For many artists this is nothing new. But for me coming from a background of rules and logic it is quiet weird.
So this weekend will be a trial to see if my ideal price is anything close to what the public are prepared to pay for my work. I’ll let you know next week.
