Pricing

Posted on November 5th, 2004 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art, General.

As my next art show approaches, I’m confronted with that age-old question of pricing.

My mosaic art is steadily becoming less of a hobby and more of an artistic venture. I love to do it, and I would equally love for it to be a viable business. Right now, my books are embarrasing. OK, so there are a lot of investment costs, but after 8 months of being in business, I have a grand total of $16 in the green. Arrrgh! I guess I also have to consider how much I have made (I could be nearing the $600 range in the red if I hadn’t sold a single mosaic). Thankfully, I have maybe 40+ mosaics ready to sell to add to that $16 at no further costs.

Anyway, I’ve been doing a lot of research on pricing artwork. I belong to a yahoo group of professional mosaic artists, and they have provided some very useful resources.

Basically, it’s come down to the pure fact that I am charging too little. And it’s a very common practise. And it needs to change if I want my artwork to be taken seriously. They advise charging 3x what you would consider charging originally - mainly because we often forget to take into account the little things that all add up. So true.

My first 30 or so pieces that I did, I would consider learning pieces. I don’t anticipate raising the prices too terribly high on those. However, my newer pieces need to go up in price if I want art collectors to not look at my work as a dollar-store commodity.

My dream is to be able to make enough income off of my mosaics to significantly contribute to the family. I’d love for Phil to be able to quit his part-time job as a contstruction worker, and only do part-time with the church. That way, he wouldn’t be so burnt out and tired most of the time.

So I guess I’ll price my new works significantly higher at this upcoming show. There’s nothing really to lose - if one person buys a piece at my new price, it would pay for 6 people buying six pieces at the old price. It’s all a learning process… and I’m loving every step of the way!

7 comments.

Thanksgiving Plans

Posted on November 4th, 2004 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art, General.

This year, we’re not able to go anywhere for Thanksgiving… but yay! I got into a great art show that I’m really excited about the weekend after Thanksgiving. It wasn’t cheap to reserve a spot, but I should make up for the cost pretty easily. It’s a two day show in Augusta, Maine at the civic center. Hopefully since it costs a pretty penny to exhibit, there will be a higher quality of artists than your standard craft show fare. … and people will come prepared to spend some money - maybe for Christmas presents. That’s one of the frustrating thing about doing outdoor shows - they’re always contingent on the weather and people often come just to walk around, not to buy. (I used to be one of the walkers - hee hee - now I see it from the point of a vender who is just silently pleading “pleeeeease come look at my stuff!”)

I’m working on a couple of large pieces for this show. It will be interesting to see if there are any takers.

Here’s a picture of one of my larger pieces in progress (it’s not grouted yet). If you’re familiar with Maine and Moosehead Lake, you’ll hopefully recognize Mt. Kineo. I’ve also posted a picture below of Mt. Kineo - it’s a bit more up-close than my mosaic, but you get the idea.

7 comments.

Craft Fair

Posted on June 20th, 2004 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art.

This past Saturday was my first venture selling my mosaics at a craft fair. Despite the torrential rains, I actually did quite well! It rained pretty much all morning and on and off all afternoon - but people did come out. I got a lot of really nice compliments on my work. It’s nice having something unique that you don’t generally see everywhere.

I also built some relationships with other vendors - very handy in the art world. A pottery maker is now going to drop off at our house free shards for me to use in my mosaics. Vendors definitely depend on each other -once you’re “in”, people are generally very friendly and will tell you about upcoming shows you may not have known about and will watch your stand if you need to go get something or take a break. There’s actually a lot of comraderie, which is kind of fun. I talked quite a lot with the guy that sold paintings across from my stand. It was kind of funny - anytime he got a customer interested in something, he would look at me and his eyebrows would shoot way up.

Anyway, I did manage to sell a good number of mosaics for the type of day that it was. And on the 4th of July, I should do much better. It was a really good experience and making contacts was almost as valuable as the money.

Here’s some pictures of my stand - the blue tarps are up because it was pouring rain.


2 comments.

Tent Wrestling

Posted on May 20th, 2004 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art.

I have a proposal for a new summer olympics game - tent wrestling. I just spent approximately one hour putting together a tent outside in the wind. Now this is not your run of the mill easy pop together camping tent. I was working on a trial run of setting up the shelter tent for my mosaics at my upcoming craft fair. I failed. Ok, granted it was really windy outside, and granted I’m only one person, and granted I’m pregnant - but come on, how difficult should these things be? I finally got all the poles together, stretched the tarpy thing over it all, and even staked it into the ground - only to have it all blow over and across our field the minute I turned my back. I’m guessing that when I have to put it up for real, I’ll have to come up with something creative like sand bags or rocks to hold the legs down (the tarpy thing is just begging to be used as a kite to fly over Moosehead lake making me the laughing stock of the craft fair). I guess I can’t complain too much - it was a pretty cheap tent. Most of the shelter tents out there for craft fairs run around 150-200 dollars. I got this one on ebay for $25. What a steal! I just hope it will work out when I really need to rely on it.

And just putting it together and seeing how big it is (10×10) has really inspired me to get back to mosaicing - I’ve been slacking the last week after a massive amount of grouting. I still have grout under my fingernails. But back to the work table I go - I want my tent to look at least decently filled. I’m trying a new grout out now - cheapo Home Depot stuff, and suprisingly, I like it much better than the expensive made-for-mosaics grout. Hooray! My two newest designs have both been on 10″x4″ boards - one with a fully leefed birch tree with a blue sky background, green grass and and grey border, and the other with the word “MAINE” on it and a pine branch - in dark brown with a light brown background (the pine branch has green in it, of course). I just hope other people will like them enough to buy!

Actually, here are some pictures of my older mosaics (I can’t post the new ones because my laptop has no editing program to change the picture size so that it’s not huge!) I’ve already sold the chickadee - but it’s one of my classic favorites. The bluebird here isn’t grouted yet and doesn’t have a frame, but you get a general idea. Wish I had some pictures up of my landscapes, but alas - they’re on the other computer.

null

3 comments.

« Newer