Once again the North East Art Fair has come around and I set up stall to see how my works were being viewed by the local public, always an interesting experience. And this year was another learning day that left me with some suspended questions.
The good thing was the positive feedback that certain images garnered and I had some interesting conversations about subject matter, painting style and presentation of pictures. Another good thing for me was a sale and a strong expression of interest in another piece. Not as good on the sales front as last year but I was expecting nothing in the current climate.
That brings me to the main question that I came away with, should we artists reduce our prices to reflect the reality out there? It was clear from some of the pricing adopted by some of the other artists that they were gambling on lowering their prices to make sales. In fact there were one or two whose pricing was little more than the cost of their frame. I'm not sure that this makes any sense at all but I would love to hear what other artists think of this.
My collection at the North East Art Fair
8 comments:
Well exhibited Mick. Glad you had some success, it's terrible when you don't. At our local shows the only sales are at the lower end, just above frame cost. Years ago we used to use 3x frame cost as a guide. We now live in an area where there are dozens of professional artists with studios. Very hard for amateurs to compete. I don't try here.
At least you made a sale Mick! At my Bathampton exhibition yesterday one of my watercolours was `highly commended',in effect runner up to the winner, out of fifty watercolours, picked by the judge, a professional artist. The same painting was voted 3rd in the popular vote out of the 140 odd paintings in the exhibition. What more can you do yet I sold zilch. The judge also made a point of finding me at the close and saying how she loved my paintings (3). I don't paint to sell so money isn't the object but it can be depressing when you bring them all home again.
Ray - I don't do it to make money which gives me the luxury of saying that there are limits to what I will do in the cause of moving pictures. I can't speak for people who don't have that luxury.
Peter - Well done with your pictures. Why do we do it? Well for me the answer to that is all to do with my sense of fulfilment and if others want to share that then all well and good.
Congratulations on your sale Mick, I would be interested to see the painting that sold.
Congrats Mick! A sale is a sale. As for price lowering I will only offer a discount for repeat buyers aka collectors. As the selection of what work goes out gets narrower the price gets higher.
As for trying to it lower priced work out there, many people would rather have smaller work anyways.
The work looks great Mick! Let us know which one sold, I'm curious to. :))
Caroline - The one that sold was the Marsden palette knife painting in my February 8th post. Thanks for the good wishes.
Dan - Thanks for your thoughts on selling. I tend to agree. You can barely see the one that sold. It's just peeking out behind the card with my name on it or you can see it better in my Feb. 8th post
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