What's it worth?

My sister-in-law needs an artist. So one day whilst visiting her, she describes what she wants. A train. I'm sure that request sounded simple to her (and probably everyone else); A few wheels, a track, a round thingy in front and a smoke stack. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. Except that it isn't easy or peasy or even lemon-squeezy. It's all valves and piston push rods and railing and rivets and...ugh. Many do-dads to render. Many hours of work. Unfortunately, she imagined the cost would be a bit less than what I thought all that time was worth . So I struggled with doing a discount piece or simply telling her my price, knowing that it was higher than what she wanted to pay and leaving it at that. I was afraid she'd think I was ripping her off or something, so I went about demonstrating why the price was what I quoted it to be (I don't normally do this). I care about my sis and her opinion of me is important.

So I dig up some reference, do up a full pencil sketch. She heard my explanation about many hours worth of rendering for all the little details and proceeded to ask if I could delete the details. Some artists would agree to that and take the money. In my younger days I would have but I'm older now and I told her no. It was my name going on that piece of art and I don't skimp on quality. It's just not in anybody's best interest.

Money is spent and gone forever, but my art will remain. After I'm gone the artwork I do will still be around and I'll not have a shoddy piece representing me. As I said above, for most clients I simply state my price and let them decide, but I attempted to make my sister-in-law understand why I wouldn't produce a less-than-perfect picture. Since she's a teacher I put it to her this way, "What would you do if your principal asked you to grade only half the students' papers because grading all of them takes too long and the school didn't want to pay you for that?" She said that very same thing had actually happened and that some teachers did it and others, like her, refused (I applaud her for that!). I then pointed out that my art is like her job; some artists will skimp and some will not. I would not skimp just to save someone money. I think she took my point. Plus, to put a picture out there that's less than my standard of quality would decrease the worth of any other picture someone had bought from me.

So I may lose that job but it will be worth it. Anything a person does should be done to the highest quality possible and at the fairest price for that quality. It doesn't matter that there are artists better or worse than me out there and it doesn't matter what they charge. If a person wants your work, they deserve the best and sometimes the best isn't the cheapest.

Don't be afraid to lose money, be afraid to lose worth.