The Expected Pricing Rant

"If the artist doesn't value his or her own work, it's a certainty no one else will." ~ Janet Toney

     I warned you it was coming, and here it is. The dreaded pricing rant. Hopefully this post will be appreciated by both my fellow artists and my potential customers. Even if it isn't appreciated, it's something worth thinking about and understanding.

     While there are some people who are completely understanding of the pricing of my jewelry and view it as entirely reasonable, there are several others who insist on telling me that my jewelry is too expensive and even a few who think that I'm underselling myself. I'm getting pretty tired of it, but I imagine it's a problem I'm just going to have to get used to. Nevertheless, I figure it can't hurt to explain things to the few people who read this blog, and hopefully the number of complainers will go down a little.

     It seems to me that there are two ways of pricing things (other than asking your friends to randomly pick a number). These two methods are rather simple to understand at the core, though of course when you add on trying to keep your prices competitive in any given market it's tricky and a whole other story. Anyway, the first method is determined by how much money it would take to get you to part with something. This typically applies to people who make art as a hobby. Since they create a work of art for fun or self-expression, when selling said piece these people typically price their work based on sentimental value and maybe the cost of materials so they can go on to create something else. Note that these people are usually too young to care about making a living, have a separate and stable job, or starve to death. The second pricing method is one that should be familiar to everyone who has ever had a job. It doesn't typically rely on the sentimental value of the item being priced, but rather the time spent and the cost of the materials that went into the item.  That second one is me. That's how I price my work. Now let me explain.

     When I finish a piece of jewelry and open up my little spreadsheet to add a price to my records, time and materials are pretty much the only factors I'm considering. I try to pay myself $10 an hour. That's reasonable right? I mean, I personally think all the work I put into that hour is worth more than $10, but I'm fresh out of college and can't be picky. Anyway, I estimate how much time I put into the piece, and I get a starting number for that. Then I look at the materials that went into it. Most of my materials are fairly inexpensive, but if a necklace is made of real turquoise, that's going to cost more than a necklace that's made of glass. So the material factor for glass, clay, or acrylic beads is going to be relatively small while the material factor for stones, pearls, and metals will be a little higher. Once I've got the number for the time spent and the number for the cost of materials, I add those together and BOOM! you have a price tag! Simple, right?

Here's an example for you. Let's look at "Waikiki Star" since I can tell you quite a bit about those materials. For those of you who like pretty pictures, here you go:

     Ok, so there it is. Let's talk about materials first. See those shiny bluish-black beads? Those are freshwater pearls. More expensive than your average bead. And that pendant there? The center of it is paua shell which is also a little pricier than other materials like glass or wood. I picked up both the pearls and the paua shell while I was staying at Waikiki, so they were a little cheaper than they otherwise might have been back here in rural Georgia. The rest of the beads are glass and some unremarkable metal, so altogether, let's say that the price of the materials was about $10. Easy enough. Now take a closer look at the pendant. I already told you that the center is paua shell, but see that black stuff around the shell diamond? That's polymer clay. Nifty stuff. The paua shell was a really thin slice (another piece I bought actually broke before I could put it on any jewelry), so I backed it with polymer clay to make it sturdier and more substantial. That little black piece of polymer clay took me a little over an hour to condition, roll out, cut to the exact dimensions needed, shape to fit the back of the paua shell, smooth, and bake in the oven. After that I had to take a little more time to glaze the clay to give it that pretty, glossy shine, and then I had to glue on the paua shell in the center using a special adhesive designed for polymer clay. So let's say almost two hours for the pendant alone. For those of you counting, $10 for supplies and $20 for two hours working on the pendant gives us $30 so far. Now for the actual necklace. If I'm lucky, planning out the necklace takes me about half an hour. Stringing is typically quick enough if there's only one strand like in this necklace, so that only took me another half an hour, maybe a little more. So with that hour of work, we tack another $10 to our price, and we finally have a $40 necklace. Ta da!

     So, for those of you who think $40 is too much to pay for a necklace, I would agree with you if it was some mass-produced string of beads cranked out by a machine in China within ten minutes. However, if a necklace is one-of-a-kind and crafted by hand out of quality materials over the course of three hours, $40 is a VERY reasonable price to pay.

      And for those of you who think I'm underselling myself because of the fact that my work IS one-of-a-kind art and I'm worth more than $10 an hour, God bless you, but I don't know many rich people and I need stuff to sell. Still, it makes me feel good to know that some people out there value my time and effort as much as I do. Thanks, guys.

     This concludes the pricing rant. Thank you and good night.