Chicago gallery owner, Peter Vale, argues that it is
because "craft is undervalued" that many artists and gallery owners find
it difficult to make a living. Few people would disagree with Vale's
assessment of the problem, but agreement on a solution is much harder to
find.
The one thing both artists and their galleries agree on, though, is
that pricing is an important issue that begins with how much the artists
can charge for their work. Ron Wilcocks says, "We are 100% supportive of
the prices our artists set." Wilcocks owns Earthwood Artisans and
Earthwood Collections in Estes Park, Colorado, with his wife
Ann.How should an artist set prices? "There are so many aspects
to that question," answers Montrose, Colorado artist Nick Zappa, who has
been making and selling stoneware pottery with his wife Joan for thirty
years. "We try to get a price for our work that is reasonable for not
only us but for the store owner as well," he adds. "They need to be able
to sell it and make a decent profit and we need to make a decent
profit."That's a worthwhile sentiment, but the first question
that comes to mind is what is a "decent" profit? Profit, of course, is
simply the difference between the cost of an item and the price at which
it is sold. For a craft artist, costs include direct items like materials
and labor as well as overhead expenses like fuel, studio rent, and
insurance. Aside from setting a minimum, these factors have nothing to do
with what an artist should charge.What about the aesthetic value
of a piece? What about the years of experience the artist has applied to
producing an object of delight? What role does free market economics
play? Veteran jewelry maker Nancy Daniels Hubert says, "I don't go by
materials and things like that. The less I want to part with a piece, the
higher I charge."
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Customers set prices
Ultimately, the retail customer determines the price an artist can
charge. Rather than start with what it costs to make a piece, the artist
should look at what similar work is selling for in galleries around the
country and work backwards, taking into account that most retailers use a
keystone markup, which produces a gross profit margin of fifty percent of
the retail price. The markup isn't simply double the artist's price,
though, because there are other cost factors involved, particularly
shipping. "We have to figure out our pricing depending on what it costs
us to get the item in our store," says Steve Fishman, who operates Stowe
Craft Gallery in Stowe, Vermont.
Some gallery owners go beyond the keystone benchmark, however, which
says something about whether prices in general are as high as the market
will bear. Art is not a commodity, so there is little elasticity of
demand in the marketplace. In other words, there may be a price so high
the customer won't pay it, but patrons seldom buy a piece of art just
because it's cheap.There is also a big psychological aspect to
prices, according to Vale, who operates the shop carrying his name in the
heart of the River North gallery district in Chicago. "We have a range of
customers from big-time collectors to the general public, and sometimes,
the collectors think something isn't good enough if it's priced too low,"
Vale points out.Wilcocks agrees. They carry work from about 230
artists in their two galleries, and he says, "We've had to counsel
artists in regard to under-pricing themselves. Some of it comes from
emerging artists who are a little timid. They're eager to please, so they
hesitate to name what they consider a big price.""You need to
know what the market is" for your work, recommends glass artist Tom
Fuhrman. "Do some prototypes and do some test marketing." Fuhrman, whose
studio is in Woodbury, Tennessee, says, Â "People don't really know a lot
about their markets. We're in a business that's pretty
unsophisticated."
Consistency counts
According to every artist and gallery owner I talked to, another
important factor is consistency of price from one distribution channel to
another. "Lately, we're becoming more sensitive to the issue of the
internet and artists who sell direct," Fishman says. "We always ask. It
affects whether we want to do business with an artist. For us, it's not a
question of whether they sell directly to the public, it's just, is their
pricing going to be similar to ours?"Vale adds another facet to
that issue: "It's really important for artists to be consistent if
they're showing similar work from one gallery to the next." Hubert even
goes a step further to protect the galleries who carry her work by
generally not exhibiting at shows in the towns where they're
located.Setting prices isn't something many artists feel
particularly comfortable doing, but it's an essential skill to develop if
they hope to have successful long-term careers. "The sad thing is, we're
not just artists anymore," Fuhrman observes. "It's more about marketing.
It's more about running a business. It sure as hell isn't much fun, but
that's what you've got to put up with."
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