Being a new artist is terrifying for so very many reasons. The giant dollar signs floating around and the running total of cash you plunk down for materials and what not is a constant companion. For the last three or four months, as my work generates interest but no income, I have a shoulder angel/devil who goes off like a car alarm every time I buy another frame or paper ream, “You’re hemorrhaging money, you’re hemorrhaging money!”
I patiently respond (in my head…mostly) “this is an investment; I am spending money to make money.” Then I spend 20 minutes calculating how many hours I will have to work at my part time day job to make back the money I’m spending. This never ends well.
On top of this, I have to price the art pieces I am sending out like 2d ambassadors into the world of art commerce. The basic formula for pricing your work has been given to me many ways;
Hours of labor + cost of material + overhead (studio/utility bills) = Price of work
Or,
(All of the Above) + Travel and publicity + commission = Price of work
And my favorite (by which I mean most frustrating) recommendation,
How much do you feel it’s worth = Price of work
Each equation raises questions. What is my hourly rate? How do I divide overhead amongst each piece of work? And so on. I feel I have settled on a hybrid of all the above and the Chimera equation results in what follows:
$12 per hr of labor + cost of material + (overhead = to the amount of days from labor) + 20% of total proceeding = total price + an additional percentage added dependant on my perceived ability to reproduce the image.
Yeah, math is scary. Despite the length of the problem, the total is always disturbingly low. I wonder how other artists puzzle this pickle out.
No comments:
Post a Comment