Pricing paintings

--A pause between Open Studio shifts--

I've always had a difficult time pricing my work.  How much is it worth?  And what does that mean?   The question of worth is made more complicated by the love-hate relationships I often have with my paintings.  Some pieces I labored and agonized over for months and called them finished without ever being truly happy with my work, others are the result of two days of inspired labor--to me seemingly much better, stronger, more successful paintings than the work of months, but on a price list, often "worth" the same or less.  And, of course, each painting feeds off the paintings and experiences that came before: one inspired painting is often the child of years of uninspired paintings (the ones hidden in the back cupboard, of course).  It only seems fair to charge for the years that went into the culminating work.  It's why someone with a PhD gets paid more to teach than someone with a BA: you're paying for their experience, for their years of study.

So how to price?  You'd be hard pressed to find an artist who can explain their prices well.  Some people just make up numbers. Some people use a price per square inch method, but that often breaks down if your paintings have a large range of sizes, often leaving small paintings costing less than the materials used to make them, or larger paintings costing as much as a house.  And an artist can spend more time creating a small painting than a large one, so what then?.  I try to be fair; when I started out I did a lot of research on the prices of artists with similar styles and sizes and backgrounds, trying to figure out where I fit in the market.  Now, certain sizes and genres of my work have established price ranges from years of showing and selling: those I can't change.  And other work of similar size and quality (ah, such a tricky quantity to measure: quality) get similar prices, plus some adjustments for size and frames.  And I try to extrapolate out from there, but it's tricky: I sometimes worry I've got it all wrong. And I'm always somewhat heartbroken when people who so clearly love my work cannot afford it, so I've tried to make up for that by selling prints and postcards.  

Open Studios has been an interesting experience for me.  Usually dealing through galleries, I've spent more time talking to the people who sell my work than those who buy it (or refrain from buying it).  Letting the world into my studio, I've heard all sorts of reactions to my prices, from those who flat out told me my work was over priced, to the kind lady who asked about my most expensive piece and then told me to stick to the price because I would get it someday, no question.

In the end, I think, the matter of worth is individual to each person. No one is going to pay a lot of money for a painting they do not like, but beyond that, what really matters? I studied for years to gain the techniques and skills I bring to my paintings. They are unique unto themselves. People spend hundreds of dollars on smart phones, which, if treated well, will last them a few years. My paintings are well crafted oil paintings, they bring joy, wonder, beauty, laughter (yes, people laugh at my work--in a good way), if treated well, they can last generations. To me, that is worth a lot.  And how many smart phones is a painting worth, anyway?