Perplexed about "value" = or is it price?

[Bartc]

I have been in studio and watched Kim Lordier live work on her pastel paintings a couple of times. Her style is representational bordering on impressionistic, her paintings sizable, and her prices in the $10-20,000 range per piece. Now admittedly, I'm taken with her style and subject, because it's what appeals to me and what I do to a much lesser degree, so that's just a taste issue. Having observed her meticulous process I think her paintings are properly priced, and I hope she sells them all!

Similarly, just about every week on YT I watch Marla Bagetta work her magic is several media, mostly the pastels. She's working faster, though no less skillfully, and smaller. While I don't have to love every piece, there isn't a single one that isn't truly attractive and well done to my eye. She sells them to her followers on Dailypaintworks.com. And she sells them to my view ridiculously cheaply. Maybe $100=200 each.

Having followed her suggestion to view Dailypaintworks, I find the site truly depressing! It's not because there aren't skads of well done and attractive paintings there, because it's full of good stuff to my taste. Rather, what downs me is that these are being sold for under $100, under $200, etc. Truly low prices. I don't see the point of that unless someone just wants to empty their shelves and/or churns them out quickly.

I have lots of similar examples of what makes zero sense to me as to valuing or pricing paintings. OK, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Value in money terms is what someone would pay, even if you don't agree. Bigger is better, as Stefan Bauman suggests. But why someone who is producing really good work would sell for less than the cost of framing truly perplexes and depresses me. YMMV, of course....

 

[Artyczar]

You are right. It's depressing. All it does is makes it more difficult for other artists to fetch fair prices for their work. Some artists don't value their work or their efforts and therefore price it so low, they can hardly make a profit, if any. Maybe they are just starting out, or maybe they just don't value art in general. It is perplexing, and sad.

And think about those buyers and how much they will value that kind of work too. Probably throw it away when they get sick of it, or stick it in a moldy garage. People who pay more for art will take better care of it. It doesn't matter what it looks like.

The first artist you are speaking of, I am not familiar with her, but she might have more experience with a collector base, or she would not be able to fetch those prices. It's not easy to just price your work at $10K and expect to get it without having sold it for near that much before. You have to start somewhere, but no one needs to start so low that they shouldn't make a profit.

Also, you really can't sell to one collector at one price and and different price to another. Once you sell in the thousands, you should not go backward. You do get stuck in brackets once a collector makes a thousands-of-dollars-investment into your work. At least it's not smart to price backward. I would never recommend it if one can help it. Sometimes one might need to bring prices down just a little at times, but no one should do it to a high percentage. It undervalues the work that all your other collectors have paid in the past. It's better to keep it the same and ideal to keep increasing the price over time with inflation and as your resume builds.

 

[john]

It seems that 0.1 percent buy the 0.1 percent of art for millions and 1 percent buy the art for 1 dollar that the other 99 percent are making as a hobby, and 99% of the people don't really buy art at all.

But cheer up, there are still a few decimal points. It could be worse. And I could be wrong. I was once before.

It just reinforces the philosophy of make what inspires you. Good chance that someone else out there will also find it attractive and all it takes is one.