Rather than slogging on and persevering (as is my nature) I’m going to admit that I’m derailed and start in another direction.
See, I made something for my shop which I thought should be framed but the frames are turning out to suck up a lot of time that I’d just rather spend doing actual creative work. So, adios frames! I have a new plan to frame these guys in the embroidery hoop, which, now that I’ve let go of the frame idea (isn’t it hard to let go sometimes?), I’m realizing might just suit them better. Less stiff, formal, more playful which is what I was going for with the stitching as well. I hope to have the final work done on them this coming weekend to show you. Things are just so busy these days on the homefront – good busy, but busy nonetheless.
And here’s a thought: when you price things for sale do you take into account all of the time spent in development? Do you count all the hours spent on projects that don’t work out, all the tweaking that needs to happen before you have finished that first prototype? The time lost that could have been used making other, more saleable things? Hopefully when people buy handmade people think about the artist, and not just the price. I mean, that’s the point of buying handmade, right?
I do production pieces for the most part so my process may well differ. Each bead or cane or larger piece (vessels, jewelry, etc.) uses designs and techniques and developments that took a lot of time, materials and effort to learn. So for one piece it would price it out of the ballpark.
ReplyDeleteThat cost is spread over many pieces, becomes part of my overhead. So my routine production pieces, even though the cane on that $2 bead took me 30 HOURS to make is now on 1500 items, just gets a few more cents in it's materials cost.
I have about a dozen gallery pieces that are uniques and not production or series pieces. They don't get the benefit of being made and subsidized by other work. They have price tags a decimal point or two over from the others.
For me, product development is kind of therapeutic. The process of creating is something I'm compelled to do, so I don't really count that into the price. Now, the time spent creating future works once I've nailed the concept I do charge for on top of my materials.
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