Lisa Call

Lines #30
Textile Painting – Mounted on stretched canvas
©2009
3" x 3"
$75
Purchase Here

A Slight Change in Prices

In January I raised prices on my artwork as part of my year of Expansion and Integrity.

Not long after that I stopped making new work due to the remodel of my house and building of my new studio. Now that things have settled down I’ve been reflecting on my pricing changes.

For the most part I’m happy with them and know this is the right direction to go although am making a few adjustments, which feels right. I was a bit jumpy about the new prices before, now it’s good.

Quick Recap on Price Increase

First, a quick review of why I increased my prices. Last fall I defined what being a successful artist meant to me and it included this point:

My work is valued by buyers and collectors, who are willing to pay a good price for my artwork.

The new prices put me more into alignment with this idea. Although not stated in that line, I think the idea that I value the artwork to price it reasonably is also important.

In addition to having prices that reflect the value of my artwork, the increases brought them in alignment with a sustainable art practice.

This part of my definition of success:

I quit my day job and live comfortably from the proceeds of my creative talents.

was not going to happen making $10 an hour or less selling my art.

The original article about raising my prices is here for those that missed it.

Gallery Commissions

The majority of my income from my artwork comes through sales of artwork through art consultants or galleries, who take a pretty healthy commission, with 50% being the most common. My previous prices were okayish if I assumed no commission.

I would cringe every time a piece was sold through these avenues. Not good.

Not good to cringe. Galleries work hard to market the artwork, art consultants need to be paid. I don’t resent paying them for their work and it is my responsibility to make sure my art is priced so that the commission is built in.

So my pricing now reflects the expected 50% commission to be paid to the gallery. It should have always included this, and it used to, somewhere along the way the value of my art outpaced my prices (looking at my records I hadn’t done a price increase in many many years – oops!)

Consistency

It’s important for prices to be consistent across all venues. Undercutting the gallery pricing isn’t a good business practice. But ignoring that, creating the artwork is half the value of art marketing it and finding a buyer is the other half.

Anyone out there selling art knows this, marketing is a big job. Doesn’t matter if it’s a gallery, art consultant or me doing that marketing piece, we need to be compensated for that effort.

This means that artwork sold via my website, where no commission is paid, is the same price as artwork sold in a gallery (artfulhome is the gallery that sells most of my art to date). So what does the commission pay for when I get to keep it? Here’s a partial list:

• Paypal fees (I’ll be adding a shopping cart soon also – that has fees).
• Shipping supplies (these are usually not covered in the shipping expenses) and time to ship. A trip to the post office is at least 1/2 an hour of time. Packing up the art to sell is non-negligible also.
• The time it takes me to list the artwork for sale on my website, again a fairly big chunk of time.
• My marketing time. I write a ton of informative articles on my blog that build my readership, which in turn builds my fans, which eventually results in art sales. At least that is what I consider to be my marketing effort – to just be me – to write about being an artist. To help people out that ask questions (although I’m behind on blog comments – oops!)

Affordable Art

All of this is what I was thinking when I raised my prices and I kinda ignored this line from my definition of being a successful artist:

I create an affordable line of work for those that can not afford my larger pieces.

This is important to me. I buy a lot of these lower priced artworks from other artists and really appreciate them offering smaller works I can afford. With my lowest prices at $120 for my 3"x3" pieces technically I did have lower priced art but it was a stretch for many.

So I’ve rethought some of my pricing on my smallest work and have decided I will not sell my ACEOs or 3"x3" textile paintings through galleries.

They will only be available on my website so I’ve lowered the prices on these. Not back down to where they were, because that isn’t sustainable, but a compromise between working for $10 and covering a full marketing commission.

The new prices for ACEOs will be $40 and the 3"x3" will be $75.

Lines #31
Textile Painting – Mounted on stretched canvas
©2009
3" x 3"
$75
Purchase Here

Smaller Work Pricing

I adjusted the prices of the work under 12" square to make more sense – what the heck was $490. That’s just weird. So I’m a little OCD - I like round numbers.

For total transparency (and because I find it really helpful when other artists share their pricing policies) here are my prices for 2009:

ACEO (2.5"x3.5") – $40
Calling Cards (2.5"x3.5" mounted on canvas) – $60
3"x3" (mounted on canvas) – $75
4"x4" (mounted on canvas) – $125
6"x6" (mounted on canvas) – $275
8"x8" (mounted on canvas) – $450
6"x12" (mounted on canvas) – $500
8"x10" (mounted on canvas) – $600
12"x12" (mounted on canvas) – $750

Going forward I will only be creating artwork in these sizes (other than the ACEOs) mounted on stretched canvas. I have a few older quilts in this range that are hung directly on the wall, these pieces are all priced $50 less than above.

Larger Work Pricing

The pricing of work larger than 12"x12" hasn’t changed much since my increase but since I’m writing about pricing I thought I’d include the info on how I do this pricing also.

I first do a calculation of the price of the work based on size using the following values (this is all done automagically in excel when I enter the size of the artwork into my spreadsheet):

$750 per sq ft for work < 10 sq ft
$700 per sq ft for work < 15 sq ft
$650 per sq ft for work < 20 sq ft
$625 per sq ft for work < 30 sq ft
$600 per sq ft for work > 30 sq ft

I look at the number and then round it up or down to a nice happy even number. The rounding up or down is based on how good I think the piece is, the age of the piece and any other factor I think influences the value of the work.

Because my work is all such irregular sizes (the advantage of not using premade canvases but creating art to any size I please) this helps to group pieces roughly the same size to roughly the same price.

Never Lower Your Prices

The rule in the artworld is that you can never lower your prices, you can only raise them. I guess I’m ignore that and lowering the price on a few sizes.

Sometimes one must just ignore all the rules and do what is right.

Lines #33
Textile Painting – Mounted on stretched canvas
©2009
3" x 3"
$75
Purchase Here

 
 
PS After all of that, check out all 12 of the new 3"x3" textile painting on my affordable art for sale page.

I took all the sold work off there so you can just see what’s available.

It was a big house cleaning day – of prices and webpages.

Structures #25
©2003
8"x 8"
Purchase Here

Doing A Lot

My days have been packed full this week.

So I was happy today to see on my calendar I had a dinner planned with a friend. Yay! Time to relax. I was quite joyous she got held up with a client so I had 30 full minutes in the restaurant to sit and do absolutely nothing. It was wonderful. Enforced relaxing. Nice.

Although dinner was nicer – great conversation, much laughing and really really yummy thai food. I discovered another great place to eat only 5 minutes from my house. Yay!

The Market

Now that I’m selling my art I’m finding the market for my work to be interesting. Occasionally things I have that I think are really pretty awesome don’t ever sell. One example is Structures #25 pictured above.

This is a 5 year old piece, but it’s still one of my favorite smaller textile paintings I’ve done yet in those 5 years noone has ever been interested in purchasing it even though it has bee offered for sale several times.

Who knows. Just interesting. I suspect the universe has very specific plans for this small textile painting and we just aren’t there yet.

Construction

Not a lot of big splashy progress but a few photos of siding and things in the walls. I’m without much of a kitchen at the moment, not that this house ever had much of a kitchen, so there has been no christmas baking yet. I will remedy that situation this weekend irregardless of the state of my kitchen. It is not christmas without homemade cookies.

December 12, 15, 16
December 17

The river at the Bend of Ivy Lodge at the Great Big Dreams Retreat – 2007

 
I got back from the Great Big Dreams Retreat today. What an incredible experience. I learned much, listened to much, thought much, laughed much and found this to be one of the most rewarding weekends I’ve spent in a long time.

I’m now enrolled in Christine’s Great Big Dreams e-seminar to continue following the path I started this week. The money I’m spending on this retreat and seminar is usually earmarked for an art workshop but I’ve decided this a much better use of money right now. I’ve felt a need for a change for a while and instead of ignoring it and continuing on as usual I’ve stopped and listened and now I am doing something to make sure the change happens.

My art is super important and I know it will continue along fine without additional instruction at this time. It’s time to get help on the bigger picture – me.

 
This year I’ve decided to list my accomplishments for 2007 without comparing them line by line to the list of goals I set at the beginning of the year (art making goals – business goals). I stopped worrying about my specific goals part way through the year because of my dad’s illness and my preference to spend as much time as possible with him.

My accomplishments/gratitudes for 2007, and in keeping with my plan of taking a more holistic view of my life they are not restricted to just art.

1. I worked in my studio around 865 hours this year – over 16 hours a week on average.
2. I complete the 13 major pieces started prior to 2007 in my Structures and Markings series: Structures #47, Structures #48, Structures #49, Structures #50, Structures #65, Markings #4, Markings #5, Markings #6, Markings #7, Markings #8, Markings #9, Markings #10, Markings #14. No more piles of unfinished work from years past to sap my energy!
3. I completed 6 new major pieces in my structures and markings series: Structures #66, Structures #67, Structures #68, Structures #74, Markings #15, Markings #16.
4. I started 4 additional major pieces in the Nancy Crow workshop that I will complete in early 2008: Structures #72, Structures #73, Markings #17, Markings #18.
5. I challenged myself to do some smaller work and completed 23 pieces: Structures #69, Structures #70, Structures #71, Structures #75 – Structures #94
6. I kept my art business records up to date each month and will be able to hand my paperwork over to my accountant as soon as I receive all the forms from banks and employers and such.
7. I wrote 150 blog posts about my art and being an artist.
8. I updated my computer system with more memory and an external hard drive and avoided having to spend thousands to buy a new machine for a few more years.
9. I sent out 2 postcards to my mailing list.
10. I started an email mailing list that I will use in 2008 for my studio newsletter.
11. I was asked to curate a show at the Lux Center for the Arts in conjunction with my solo show coming up in April.
12. I sent out many solo show proposals.
13. My work was included in the Blogger Show so I had my first piece included in a show in a New York City gallery.
14. I did a minor update to my website midway through the year.
15. I got to display my work at a Ferrari dealership
16. I came very close a few times to getting my email queue down to 0.
17. I have learned to love my day job instead of spending 8 hours a day wishing I were in my studio instead. My life is now more peaceful.
18. I entered 7 juried shows and was accepted into the Visions Quilt Art Gallery Member show, Artist as Quiltmaker at FAVA, the Arvada Center Holiday Art Show, Materials Hard and Soft, and Art Quilt Elements.
19. I completed Matisse The Master, by Hilary Spurling and A Woman On Paper by Anita Pollitzer and have started a biography on Picasso.
20. I listened to many good books on tape, too numerous to list. My favorite by far was Eat, Pray, Love. Reading this book was a large factor in taking charge of my life to make it what I dream it to be.
21. I traded artwork with Tracy Helgeson and then received one of her Pay It Forward pieces. I’m thrilled to own 2 of her pieces now.
22. I gave away 3 small pieces of art via my blog.
23. I stopped complaining about what the art quilt world was doing.
24. I helped my daughter’s class make quilts for their teacher and the silent auction fund raiser.
25. I made a commitment to go complaint free.
26. I helped my daughter make quillows and pillows to sell for her class project. She came close to selling out her booth and grossed over $300. I earned about $100 of it as her employee, which I spent buying things from the other kids in her class.
27. I put aside money each month to purchase art and bought a few small pieces from artists who’s work I admire.
28. I made 3 artist trading cards and sold 2 of them. This one is still for sale Sold.
29. I got to see my piece, Structures #36, hanging at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design a few days ago.
30. I took the big step and put my work up for sale online, on my blog, my etsy shop, guild.com and my cafepress shop. From this I learned more about how I want to sell and market my work and what feels authentic to me.
31. I won the Lydia S. Golomb Memorial Award for Outstanding Use of Traditional Materials at Fiberart International.
32. I took a 2 week workshop with Nancy Crow and spent 2 amazing weeks completely immersed in my art.
33. As the year came to a close I returned to yoga, hiking and searching for the truth of what I want from this life.
34. I maintained a gratitude journal for a good part of the year.
35. I continued to build my investments focusing on my plans for retiring early.
36. I canned 2 batches of homemade salsa with tomatoes from my garden.
37. I went to Kansas to help my mother say goodbye to her husband, a really cool guy.
38. I spent more time with my family this year than I have in a long time. It’s been wonderful, even if not always in the best of circumstances. I appreciate my relationship with my mother, sister, brother and Shirley and am lucky to have them in my life.
39. I was able to say goodbye to my father in a comforting and loving way before he died and have no regrets. This was the hardest thing I did this year and I am very thankful for the friends and family that were there for me.
40. I left a long term relationship that was not working out, which took a lot of strength and courage as there were some good parts, but the bad was no longer acceptable.

 
Thank you to each of you that read my blog, whether you comment or not. I appreciate the support and kind comments so many of you have left over the years.

Happy New Year everyone. May the year bring you everything you dream of and more.

The Quillows (a quilt with a pocket so it can be converted into a pillow)

 
My daughter’s middle school humanities class is studying capitalism and each of the kids (or group of kids) has secured a small business loan from the Micro Business Development Center in Denver to start their own business through their YouthWorks program. Her teacher is an amazing teacher and this is a wonderful opportunity for her to get a glimpse into my world as an artist hoping to make a living from their art.

At one point she told me she was stressed out because she had to start a business and that I had no idea what she was going through. When I told her I knew exactly what she was going through she countered with "yeah, but you aren’t 11". Hard to disagree.

The Pillows (my daughter’s original designs)

 
They are working on marketing this week. My daughter is going for the socially conscience save our environment approach.

A selection of "cornbags" – heating pads you microwave.

 
The kids are setting up shop this friday during the monthly First Friday Artwalk in the Santa Fe Art District here in Denver. If you are in Denver come check it out. I hear there will be some very cool products available that will make excellent holiday gifts.

December 7th from 5:30pm to 8:00pm

The stores will be upstairs in the Micro Business Development building located on at 700 Kalamath.