Thursday, April 20, 2006

The Price is Right (?)

Pricing art is..... an art. Some is perhaps overpriced, but I believe even more is underpriced. For information on this kaleidoscope wind chime, or to buy it, Click here.

A posting on the forum at Artwanted.com (great site for artists and art lovers) suggested that much art is overpriced. The poster discussed the really high-priced collector art, but also touched on art by non-famous people.

My own feeling is that a lot of art is underpriced. Art is one of the rare things that has true, long lasting value. I don't mean dollars, necessarily~ I mean intrinsic value. If you like it today, very likely you will like it even more in a year, or in a decade. There is not much else out there that this can be said for. You love that car today, but in a decade it's going to be a rusty pile of loose screws.

People who bought my work three, four or five years ago sometimes come back now to add to their collection. They frequently write how they still love the first piece they bought. That is part of the special value of art~ the pleasure it brings does not decrease after a few weeks or years.

Art is hard to price because each piece contains something of the artist's soul. That's something you can not measure by the pound or by the yard. Knowing what to do, and what not to do~ how far to take a piece, and not to cross the line-- that's the artist's job. Putting a price on this is not an easy task.

4 comments:

  1. Just me again :)
    I always try to set the pricing so that everyone can afford to buy. My drawings goes from £20 up to £500-600 each, all depending on size and the subject.

    And yes, it can be very difficult to set the price.

    I like the colours in the glass in this wind chime btw. Must be beautiful in the sun :)

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  2. Hi Christa,
    Thank you so much for following my posts so faithfully~ I always very much appreiciate your thoughts.

    I was thinking of making a series of less expensive works~ but you know, selling mainly online, by the time you take pictures and write descriptions and pack and ship~ it is not really worth it to sell in the $30-50 range.

    I do get a lot of emails from people wishin they could afford my work. I wish they could, too!

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  3. Anonymous9:01 PM

    I buy art, when I can, because it speaks to me, not because I plan to re-sell it down the road for a profit. "overpriced" is in the eye of the author!



    (via blogclicker)

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  4. Very cool stuff on your blog...

    If you get a chance check out my blog, FreshTrend, its a collection of cool stuff I've found from around the Internet.

    ReplyDelete