It’s the season of small work shows in the art world. Gallerists seem to think they can get people to buy original artwork as gifts if they can just keep the work small enough and the prices low enough. If you’re an artist and you pay any attention to open calls you’ve no doubt been inundated with requests for work that is no larger than 20 inches on its longest dimension, framed, and often with a restriction on the asking price.
In years past I’ve snubbed these small work shows. Sure, I’ve got a good inventory of small work, but almost none of it is framed or on canvas. I’m not super interested in seeing my work on a gallery wall hung salon style like a better lit version of a tacky family restaurant wall of sports memorabilia or an untended supermarket bulletin board stuffed so full you can’t tell where one bill ends and the next begins. And on top of it all, if I’m showing a framed piece that costs me $100 to frame a piece and the gallery sells it for $200 and takes 50%, that leaves me with $0 for my troubles, or $35 in the hole if there was a submission fee involved (I’m looking at you, Bromfield).
This year I’m trying something new. I’m going for it. I’m looking at things in a whole new light, and I may be very misguided.
I’m doing one show this year where the price limit is $100. Are you kidding me? $100? That’s not an art fair, that’s a craft fair. But the show is in my studio building and I want to participate in the community and I had some little 16 x 12” paintings on canvas that didn’t need to be framed from 2015 in my archive so I figured I might as well put them in.
The other two small work shows I’ve currently got scheduled are in commercial galleries. This is good. I’m trying to foster more and better relationships with commercial galleries. A small works show is like a foot in the door. It’s a chance to show the gallerists you’ll actually show up, and that your work is as good as it looks online (or better). There are a lot of flakey artists out there, and if you can differentiate yourself by not being one that’s a huge mark in your favor.
It’s also the case that a small painting, while it can be a perfectly whole and complete work in itself, is also kind of an advertisement for a larger painting. I very much believe in planting seeds that will grow into trees some number of years from now. If someone buys a nicely framed $200 printer paper sized painting from one of these shows and hangs it up in their home, they will be looking at it every day. One day this person may find that they have a bigger home, or have out-grown their collection fo Star Wars prequel movie posters and suddenly have some extra bedroom wall space to fill, or the company they started may move to a larger office; any number of fortuitous events may take place and when they do that person may look at that little painting and think, I’ve always liked this painting, let me look at what else this artist has to offer. It’s the same reason you want to make your business cards or show post cards nice enough to get people to magnet them to their refrigerators.
In light of this, I’ve also started an experiment here on the website. You’ll notice a couple of extra sidebar categories listed, $200 Winter Sale and $300 Winter Sale. These two collections feature a curated set of nine paintings each. 11 x 8.5 inch for $200 and 19 x 13 inch for $300. Framed. In nice frames, too. If you’re curious, when someone buys a $200 painting, I pay $95 to have it framed and shipped to them. It’s about $120 for the 19 x 13 inch paintings. I’m trying to say it’s not a lot of money that makes its way back to me. It would be impossible to run a profitable studio off of selling these, but maybe I can offer up an opportunity to a few people who watch me closely to pick up something they like for themselves or someone they know, and maybe some people new to art collecting with make their first purchases. I like selling these. I like when new people buy my art.
So what’s the misguided part? I’ve actually gotten some pushback on these prices. Specifically the $200 pieces. When I dropped of my three paintings for the Plenty show at 13Forest Gallery they told me $200 seemed too low for original paintings. They suggested increasing the price to $250 and I gave them my reasoning I outlined above and said some things about price consistency and they agreed it would be best to keep them priced at $200 but not take any lower offers.
The other pushback I’ve received is from Danielle Glosser at Client Raiser, a career consulting agency for artists. I met Danielle at Superfine! in Washington, DC a couple of weeks ago, where she gave a brief talk to a gathering of artists during one of the slower hours. Danielle graciously offered each of us a personal introductory telephone call and one of the first things that she said to me was that I should not be selling artwork for $200 and I should not be selling artwork off of my own website. She says it cheapens the work and gallerists hate it. She says maybe you can get away with those kinds of prices for prints, but not originals.
I don’t entirely disagree, but also what’s the fundamental difference between a print and a small work? I usually do five or more of these 11 x 8.5 inch paintings at the same time. I just finished a batch of seven yesterday. I work on them while I am doing other paintings. It’s basically the same with the 19 x 13 inch pieces, but with smaller quantities. They are a little like sketches. I work out my ideas for the larger paintings in them. Or I just put the things I need to get out into them when those things are not right for the larger painting I’m working on. In any case, the fact that I sell an 11 x 8.5 inch paining for $200 is not going to have any effect on the price of a 48 x 36 in painting on canvas.
I’ve tweeted my pricing algorithm a bit in the past year, but I think it’s in a good place now, and I think it’s going to stay where it is or maybe I’ll increase the constant just a bit year by year if sales go well (they haven’t). I’ve landed on a fairly straightforward formula: Take the square root of the multiple of the length in inches and the height in inches. Multiply this by $55. Multiply the result by 0.95 to the power of the number of years since the painting was completed. This last bit just means that every year the previous years price for an old painting reduces 5%. This being the end of the year, I probably should not tell you that. But so anyway for a painting that is 48 inches tall by 36 inches wide that was made two years ago this means $55 * sqrt(48 * 36) * 0.95^2 = $55 * sqrt(1728) * 0.90 = %55 * 41.57 * 0.90 = $2063. I’d typically round that up to $2065 because a three often makes people ask questions.
In conclusion, small work is not my profit puppy, but I think it has some potential as a foot in the door in a number of ways, and I’m always flattered when people buy my work, regardless of the price, so long as it’s enough that they’re probably not just going to toss it when they decide it doesn’t match the color of the new couch. Having it hanging on someone’s wall is surely better than having it languish in my ever growing collection of presentation binders, and so long as I’m not trying to undersell a gallery I’m partnered with, I cannot understand the reason a commercial gallery would have a problem with me selling this work off of my own website.
I’d be curious to hear what you think. Do you sell off of your website and work with galleries? Are you a gallerists? Do you avoid talking about prices at all costs? Have I made a huge mistake? Do please let me know.
thanks,
Blake.