Angel Gabriel by Cole Thompson
Thousands of Homes or Thousands of Dollars?
Or how to price your own art? That is a question photographer Cole Thompson wrote about recently on his blog, Cole Thompson Photography.
In the post he explains his approach to money and art in such a well thought out and well written way that I knew I had to share it with you. Here is a small excerpt from the article:
“Worrying about producing art that others like and will buy is not conducive to risk taking and being creative. When I create I want to think about only two things; the art and how I feel about it.
So what method should you use to price your work? I’m suggesting that there might be another way to determine pricing based on your goals rather than your costs or market forces. Several years ago I asked a similar pricing question to someone I respect and he in turn asked me a question: in the end would you rather have your images in thousands of homes or to have sold them for thousands of dollars? He emphasized that there was no right or wrong answer, only what I preferred. I immediately answered that I would like my art to be in thousands of homes.
Therefore I have chosen to price my work reasonably and affordably compared to my peers, because my goal is to produce art that I love and allow as many people to purchase it as possible.”
Click here to read the complete post.
How to price your own art?
After you read it I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments below. I believe Cole has a really smart approach to art and money but I know not everyone will agree. Do you?
This approach is fine if you do something like photography where you can print off multiple copies of a single image. I’m with his colleagues who argue printing off endless images cheapens your work in more than an economic sense. This approach just cannot apply to one off fine art works. My works take anywhere from 100 to 200 hours to create. When pricing, I have to consider the cost of materials, the hours the work took to create, my potential market and my stage of career. It’s a tricky balance between not pricing yourself out of your market but not giving your work away either.