11) Highs & Lows

Life has been full of new experiences over the last year – most of them very positive and exciting. I’ve found new doors opening for my art, one of which has been a number of requests for tuition. I’ve often discussed my techniques informally with people at Art Group, but booking a one or two hour session and being paid for it, demands that I really come up with the goods and meet the needs and, to a certain degree, the expectations of each individual. This has proved most enjoyable and I’ve learnt a lot in a short space of time. Being part of Open Up has been worth it if only to advertise my services as a tutor and I’m keen to hone my teaching skills yet further. I was really thrilled to be asked to do a demonstration this Sunday at the Hallam Art Group Spring Exhibition. Generally I don’t do demonstrations because people like to see a completed painting at the end of it and I work too slowly for that. I tend to do talks and slide-shows instead. What I have always done for Open Up is have a piece of on-going work available, and my materials spread out, so that I can demonstrate on a small portion of the picture when required. I’m really looking forward to Hallam – to see if I can concentrate on the art whist talking it through with a larger audience.
One of the less positive experiences over the past three weeks (but no doubt character- building) has been the illness and subsequent death of my mother. She was taken ill on Easter Day and against all the odds survived for ten days, but it was a roller–coaster ride with several false alarms. I tried to plan the Hallam demonstration and my preparations for Open Up as thoroughly as possible, knowing that things would almost certainly go “belly-up” at some point. I don’t need to get any more work produced but I do need to be “bright-eyed and bushy tailed” for both the demo on Sunday and the Open Up Launch Party at the City Hall on Monday. Fortunately, I feel tons better now, after a couple of good nights’ sleep, but motivation and concentration don’t come easy at a time like this!

10) Money, Money, Money

I said that I’d look at the knotty problem of pricing this week, a subject I find many artists reluctant to discuss.
The difficult thing about pricing is that it’s not just a case of comparing one picture with another by the same artist, but also setting a price in line with other artists. If one person sets their prices very low it potentially undermines other artists who are asking a more realistic price for their time and skill. The other difficult area , I find , is when you’re in that in-between ground, no longer an amateur treating it as a fulfilling hobby, but neither having the “street-cred” of a well established artist whose work is starting to become collectable. I remember a neighbour being shocked when she saw one of my pictures in a commercial gallery with a price-tag of £200. I tried hard to suppress my anger and explain graciously how little I would receive after 30% commission, £20 frame and mount, £3 materials, £3 hanging fee and two week’s work! This is where Open Up can provide a real opportunity to educate those who visit, so that original pieces of art become valued.
I now have a sort of system to help me which fairly compares one picture with another and gives me a “ball-park” figure which can be tweaked. I keep a record of the hours spent on a picture and multiply that by the hourly rate I’d like to get ( in a real world, that is, not what I might wish I’d get!) and then add on the cost of the frame, which can vary considerably. Commission will also need to be taken into consideration. This system stops me selling things too cheaply when I’m feeling down or having a run of poor sales and stops me pricing things too high that I’m particularly fond of. This system works well for me and can be flexible too.