Baren Digest             Thursday, 26 October 2000     Volume 13 : Number 1192


----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@home.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 07:38:47 -0700
Subject: [Baren 11838] Re: Baren Digest V13 #1189 

Gillyin.

Welcome to the Baren.  You will certainly find a great bunch of people here.

I find your comments interesting in regards to pricing and the 
comparison Dave makes with Matt Brown.
May I suggest that you price in accordance with your 
ability/reputation and not what your niegbour does or what Dave 
thinks is a good price.  He and I differ greatly on pricing. He is 
selling copy prints of limitless volumn.... all be it very high level 
of craft and skill... he is not in the Original create fine art 
market.  Also living in Tokyo he may not know what the local climate 
is like. He has access to 32 million population.... you and I have 
access to maybe 3 million.  The prices we saw by Neil Welliver for 
works from $2 - $10 thousand is very realistic give the origniality 
and size of works.  On checking the time span of 30 years doing what 
he does then all seems right.

'Anything cheap is worth what you pay for it'

Price your work sensibly and with very gradually increase.  For 
example my original watercolours started at $150.00 and now after 25 
years are about $1500.00
Prints that I did 8 years ago sold for $225 are now at $1200. It is 
my belief that you can always increase prices but never decrease 
prices.  Decreasing is very hard to justify to a buyer and save 
confidence ..... and reputation.

I would not touch ebay..... I have a philosophy.

"If you have a product and sell it in a Junk Shop it becomes a piece 
of Junk.  Take that same product and sell it in an Antique Shop and 
voila..... an antique".  Need I say anymore.

The chance of the internet giving you an new outlet is not likely to 
happen.  Sorry about that.  I have been there for since 1997 and can 
count on two hands the number of sales.
If you are selling inexpensive posters and fashion art to meet the 
decor market you can do really well.  Fine art does not sell in the 
digital format.  Someday we can only hope this will change.

I would not sell galleries short.  They are not elitist and priced 
too high.... if that is in fact what David says. I would say to you 
that galleriers, I am not talking mom and pop outlets, are sellective 
and have a cliental that is discrete and have the money to spend on 
quality Original "Blue Chip Art".  This day and age with so many 
people doing images, it is difficult for the average public to 
discern what is high end and if the producer.... you and I..... are 
going anywhere. Some Gallery owners have the skill to home in on the 
person that has potential and will work with that artist.

I must say these galleries are few and far between and very very 
difficult to access.  The only way is to keep working, and keep them 
informed of what you are doing and this becomes the proof of your 
intent and progress as a contributor in the fine arts field.

Elitism and snobbery is often a mind set and there is no reason you 
can not consider "selectivity" and "blue chip" as your mind set. What 
is in a word?  If you choose to reach for higher plateaus then you 
are the wiser and the rewards will be yours.  If you choose to get 
there with your nose in the air and with the thought that your are 
all important and great then ..... I've met them You've met them..... 
it may be that only you will know this and it will certainly turn 
people off.

I am a great believer in doing all my own PR by hold studio and 
private exhibitions.
I have rented space in high end facilities.  i.e.  Heritage 
buildings. Civic and Conference Centres. and yes even galleries that 
I rented the space, from Montreal, Toronto days to here on the West 
Coast.

Does it work.... well with some teaching we have survived for 24 
years. It is only in the last few years that life has become more 
financially rewarding and the demand on my work is moving slowly but 
controllable.

One always has to remember that in our field there is no definitive.
I like the adage    Different strokes for different folks.  Take what 
suits and run with it.

Create - Cut - Print.

Graham/Victoria BC
An Island in the Pacific
http://members.home.net/gscholes/







------------------------------

From: GWohlken <blueman@pantek.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 10:57:33 -0400
Subject: [Baren 11839] Re: Baren Digest V13 #1191 

Welcome to new member Gyllyin Gatto.  Looking forward to seeing your
work.  

Regarding pricing.  I, too, am curious about pricing.  What constitutes
the difference between a print selling for $25 and one for $125?  Is it
the difference between framed and unframed?  Or is it the difference
between matted and unmatted?  Or size?  And how do you price the little
engravings which actually have a lot of work in them compared to the
sweeping and fast gougework of some of the larger pieces (I'm talking
black and white oil-based, not hanga).  Is there a formula one can use
consistently?  I can't seem to get consistency in my pricing.  If it's
framed I just tack on the framing price above the regular price of say
$25 for just the plain print (I always send it out for framing because
my skills in framing just aren't there).  But what do you do if the
print is a little smaller--say 8 x 10 instead of 8 1/2 x 11 (not a whole
lot of difference), or 6 x 8 (a bit of noticeable difference).  What
about several color blocks?  Then does the price go up?  People have
asked to buy some of my work and I don't know how to price it.  I
remember Barbara Mason had said she has a formula which has helped
immensely.  Recently someone came up to me at the Fair and asked "Do you
sell your prints because I love "The Hound of the Baskervilles."  Well,
I hemmed and hawed and lost a sale because I didn't know what to say. 
That particular print was one of my most difficult because of the
rainbow roll on top of another color.  

So could we talk about pricing our work?  

Gayle

------------------------------

From: B Mason <bemason@concentric.net>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 08:01:57 -0700
Subject: [Baren 11840] galleries 

Hi to all,
I want to say a little in defense of galleries. Having been in an artist
owned gallery for 8 years here in Portland, I can tell you it is a huge
amount of work. Each artist pays $100 a month and 10% commission up to a
cap of $200. We are in the very heart of the gallery district in a new
building, built to look like industrial space.Very sleek and clean and
very upscale.There are 15 of us, our rent is $1200 a month for 756 sq
feet and the balance of monies paid by the artists covers phone, heat,
etc. Each artist is responsible for their own promotion when they have a
show and some do a lot and others do little. Last year we sold about
$50,000 worth of work. If any one person was trying to make a living on
these sales and pay expenses out of them, they would either starve or go
out of business. The gallery business is tough. With 15 of us splitting
the costs we can stay in business forever, as long as we are willing to
do the work, which takes a fair amount of time. Hanging, promoting,
cleaning, gallery sitting. I honestly don't know how some of these
galleries make it. Perhaps they have the odd huge sale to keep them
going. Our largest sale a few years ago was $15,000 for a piece of
sculpture. We were pretty excited, to say the least. I think very few
galleries are making it big while not paying the artists enough money.
Most are just trying to stay afloat. Even one of our largest galleries
here in the city just stays one step ahead of creditors. This is why
galleries are willing to do less and less and want more from the
artists. It makes it very tough on all of us. Perhaps Graham is right
and there are just too darned many of us out there making images and
trying to sell them! Prints are also a hard sale, most gallery owners
keep them in drawers and hang the paintings on the wall. After all they
would rather give the space to a $2000 painting than a $200 print. We
are lucky here in Portland as there are a lot of printmakers and prints
in this city and printmaking is widely respected and sold here, but I
think this is the exception. Most cities have one print gallery if any
and the others keep the prints in drawers, as I mentioned.
Barbara

------------------------------

From: B Mason <bemason@concentric.net>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 08:17:36 -0700
Subject: [Baren 11841] Pricing 

Gayle,
This is an interesting thing, pricing! When I started out selling about
10 years ago I thought about the smallest amount I would take for a
piece of work, then I doubled it and added the price of the frame. This
is what you would need to do for a gallery and I wanted my prices to be
consistent. I have sold very few blockprints, but the ones I have sold I
have charged $110 framed. These were about 9x11 image size or smaller.
My monotypes, which I have been making for years I price by size of the
frame, as I sell very few unframed.
24x30 - $350
20x24 -$300
16x20 -$250
11x14 -$150
I do all my own framing and buy everything wholesale, my largest frame
costs about $45 not including labor. I frame about 150 pieces a year.
Hard to believe, where is that money? I have about 20 monotype pieces in
inventory, but that goes up and down.
So hope this helps you set prices.  Plan for those eventual gallery
sales and you will get them. My advise is to go and see the gallery
before you send your work. I have gotten stung once, but that was
because the gallery sold and the new owner was not as reputable as the
old one. I lost 6 pieces of work as I am in Oregon and the gallery was
in Houston. So I make more work. In this case they had framed them, so
that was a plus. At least I wasn't out the cost of the frames.
Barbara

------------------------------

From: David Bull <davebull@woodblock.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 00:37:40 +0900
Subject: [Baren 11842] Re: Internet useful? 

Graham wrote:
> The chance of the internet giving you an new outlet is not likely to
> happen.  Sorry about that.  I have been there for since 1997 and can
> count on two hands the number of sales.

Well, I don't want to start a contest counting the number of hands we
all have, but I would like to toss in a contrary viewpoint here. My
experience with the internet has been somewhat different from Graham's;
I have found that it is indeed an excellent way to give my work a much
wider exposure than I could possibly give it in other ways, and it has
brought me many new collectors.

In the years before I put my work on the net, 100% of my collectors were
people who saw my work in my local environment, either in the gallery
space I rent in Tokyo each year, or in local media exposure. But over
the past two years since I set up the 'Surimono Albums' website, the
number of my collectors living overseas, people who 'met' my work on the
internet, has grown to more than a quarter of the number of total
collectors, and is increasing weekly.

I think it is important to avoid the 'click here to order this print'
sort of web pages; it is essential that you let the viewers have enough
information to 'get to know you' well, just the way that they would if
chatting with you for a half hour in a gallery somewhere. The images
alone are not enough, I feel. To put it perhaps a bit crudely, I feel
that when people collect my work, they are not just buying pieces of
coloured paper, they are buying a piece of 'me', and a piece of my life;
they are sharing in the experience of helping these prints come into
existence.

Anyway, to respond to the point: 'I am hoping that the internet will
give me a new outlet' ... I simply wish to emphasize that yes, the
internet can indeed do that.

***

As far as pricing goes, this is of course a very personal matter, and
what works for one of us may not work for anyone else. In my case, my
price is based on fundamental calculations of costs and expenses, just
like any other manufacturing business. I set the price at a level that
covers my cost of production, plus a reasonable profit. Over the years I
have become a fairly efficient 'producer', so the prices are manageable
by 'normal' people, and not just wealthy collectors, something that
gives me considerable satisfaction. 

Graham added:
> 'Anything cheap is worth what you pay for it'

... but I must add that the word 'cheap' has two different meanings, 
and I am proud that many collectors find my prints 'cheap' enough to
collect!

But artists are living on a different 'planet' as it were  :-)  and just
how you should determine a dollar value for your work is something that
I have no experience with.

Dave



------------------------------

From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@home.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 09:12:29 -0700
Subject: [Baren 11843] Re: galleries 

Thanks for this Barbara....
I neglected to mention Artist run Galleries...
They can be very worth while and when a good organizer and motivator 
(of fellow artists) is available, can operate very effectively.

Graham



------------------------------

From: "Jean Eger" <jeaneger@LanMinds.Com>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 10:18:24 -0700
Subject: [Baren 11844] Re:   Baren Digest V13 #1191 charset="iso-8859-1" 

Welcome Gillyin Gatto,
I admired your work years ago when you had a web site on line.  Then it
disappeard and I searched for your name on line to no avail.  Your prints
are eloquent and beautiful.  The cutting is very skillful.  They convey the
peacefulness of a cabin in the Maine woods, the comfort of the coziness
inside during winter.  All the people in the northeast are forced inside by
the weather, unlike California where one can roam outdoors all year, just
about.  Your web site was, for me, an example of what I wanted mine to be
like.  What happened to it?

I think your prices are very good and realistic.  I have a few friends who
price their works to sell, but most set a high price.  I guess it is a
matter of one's own personal judgement and one's own idea of what it means
to be a professional artist..  Also self-confidence.  As for selling art on
line, I had a few nibbles when I first went on line, but I was too busy to
follow up on them, and the leads disappeared.  I have registered my own
domain name, but haven't been able to get it on line yet, for some unknown
reason.  I think one must throw oneself wholeheartedly into selling art at
fairs, plus have a consistent style and subject matter.  I may do that when
I am retired, but for now, I am still looking for a day job.
Jean Eger-Womack
http://users.lanminds.com/~jeaneger


------------------------------

From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 12:10:43 -0500
Subject: [Baren 11845] Re: Internet useful? 

I think Maria is hot and doing a wonderful job of combining Art fairs, Internet
website promotion, occassional ebay auctions and yes....multi gallery
representation on both the east and west coast......I know it all starts out
with the hardwork put in at the studio....

how about it Maria can you give us some feedback on how the whole package is
working out ?

Julio



------------------------------

From: "Maria Arango" <maria@mariarango.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 10:18:57 -0700
Subject: [Baren 11846] Re: pricing & web sales charset="iso-8859-1" 


Well well, I do think that you will get as many answers as there are members
in the forum.
BUT!!!
I have to disagree with the two statements above, IMHO and IME (in my
experience). I can't count on two hands the number of prints that I sold
online this month, although I admit this is a jump from my average. My
prints, however are more affordable than Graham's (I will avoid the use of
the word "cheap" although I also am proud to offer collectors from all walks
of life something they can afford).
Sample of my prices:
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/buyit.html
Artists always tell me I'm giving stuff away. People at art fairs complain
that art is expensive. I'm happy with what I get, and I think that is the
key. I don't price by size, I do take into account colors vs. one-block
prints. I don't make my customers pay for expensive framing or for how long
it took me to do something or for an entire edition of work in one little
print. If I make a 5" x 7" engraving but I have 200 in the edition, I will
price according to that, not how long it took me to engrave the block. If I
sell the entire edition (eventually!) for $55.00 each, that's peachy.
If I have a 9-block color print I charge more, but if the print is 9" x 12"
you can't expect customers to understand a $400.00 price tag even if it took
12 months to complete the thing. Price your prints according to what you see
"out there." Scout many artist's websites and ask them what they get for
prints. Are you starting out? Are you shown in galleries? Everything counts
to you but sometimes not to the public.
Look for achieving a balance between steady sales and feeling good about
what you get for prints.

I always agree with Graham when he talks about educating the public. I have
had people in art fairs ask me why this 9" x 12" is more expensive than this
other 20" x 16" and then I put on my kid gloves and tactfully explain to
them what a woodcut is and what it takes to make a 14-block color print. I
lost a sale last art fair because someone wanted to talk me down on a
3-block reduction, edition 32. When I tried to explain what they were buying
($175, framed!) they simply said: "I don't care about any of that." I
replied: "You should, this is not a poster and my prices are rock-bottom
already and firm." He got ticked off, too bad, I didn't want my print on his
wall anyway :-)

The Internet is being used more and more by galleries "scouting" artists,
and they want at-a-glance information on who you are, what you do and yes
yes, pricing of your work. I do agree that people are more *likely* to buy
your work if they have seen it live, but web sales do happen. I have said
this before and will repeat, they will NOT happen by themselves. Be ready:
http://www.printmakingstudio.com/Artist/portfolio.html

Website promotion is essential if you want to attract visitors to your
website, and they must be the right kind of visitors looking to buy art
online. It can get kinda "markety" but the results are there!
I disagree with Dave's statement because today's online shopper _will_
expect a click-here-and-buy-this-print-now-BUTTON. They don't want to talk
to you, they don't want to fill out a form and mail it in, forgodsakes they
don't want to make an appointment to see you in your studio! They are
shopping online because (I should include myself here) we like to shop from
the privacy of our homes by clicking and  not talking to any swift-talking
sales person, flaky artist, or cunning agent. They see, they click, they
greet the mailman. More and more people are going online to shop, this trend
will continue to increase at faster rates as huge companies go online.
As I said, I have done well through online sales, both through my own
website and through online galleries, although it wasn't worth paying a
gallery for online representation. 95% of my online sales were paid for by
credit card. I have received phone calls and mail orders, mostly because my
shopping cart software was down or did not work for that person at that
time. Live and learn.

As Dave pointed out, people do want to get to know you, so include a
friendly "meet the artist" page.
http://www.printmakingstudio.com/artist.htm

I hope all this helps, it is only one approach and I am sure there are many
other ways. This works for me.

Health to all,
Maria

<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Maria Arango, Printmaker
Las Vegas  Nevada  USA
http://www.1000woodcuts.com
maria@mariarango.com
<><><><><><><><><><><><>


------------------------------

From: "Gillyin Gatto" <gillying@midmaine.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 18:08:43 -0700
Subject: [Baren 11847] Re: Baren Digest V13 #1191 

hi wanda et al; i have not seen the print you mention  but i did see a show
of neil welliver woodcuts at the portland( maine) museum a year or so ago
- -   i am unfamiliar with the term "hanga"     --  my impression of the very
large woodcuts  was that they were stupendous !  but it is one of my pet
peeves  to see a painter  hand his work to a japanese master to carve and
print , and then be given credit for 'doing woodcuts'... it seems to me that
shigemitsu  tsukaguchi  did them ,didnt he ? and no amount of collaboration
matters- i think its a gimmick way for this well known and excellent painter
to  reproduce his work and sell it for big bucks .  i WAS pleased to see in
the show that welliver  did show some small simple woodcuts that he HAD done
himself !  but i refuse to call those big prints his, they are copies by
tsukaguchi of wellivers work !! at any rate, i hope to learn what does hanga
mean, i have been out in the woods for 27 years  doing mostly simple black
and white, but very large,prints  .imagine my excitement to see ALOT i dont
know about !! its like getting to go back to school and not leave the farm.
as a newcomer to computers it will take me a while or so to get some work up
on the screen  but actively working on it.  thanks for the welcomes from
david and  b mason    this is a sure cure for the cabin fever season that is
coming right up in maine   and i stand corrected and offer apologies IF
welliver DID carve and print those blocks himself  but i dont think
so.........gillyin
- ----------

End of Baren Digest V13 #1192
*****************************