So your toilet blocks you try to unblock it you fail, you call the plumber he comes spends 15 mins ‘faffing’ unblocks it and then turns around and charges you £60. No chemicals used or materials this is just his time messing around in your loo with a large plunger. You pay it, you need a working toilet but its not a glamourous bill & you don’t say to him “Hey could you unblock it for £30?” I think £60 for 15 mins work is pretty awesome amount to earn. Lets compare an artist/ designer maker to the plumber, I make couture ceramic buttons and jewellery retail price about £12 each, this figure has been carefully calculated, this is an exciting unique designed & handmade ‘product’. And yet I sometimes get comments like ‘pricey’, really….. seriously? My work is about as far removed as you can get from one of those 10p buttons made in china that you get out of thoses tubes in a market or haberdashery and you will turn around & then buy a metre of fabric for £12. It makes me sad that artists designer makers think they have to compete with primark & walmart & its sad that buyers expect us to try & compete too. I see artists under pricing their work so often, seriously we need to check ourselves our value. The plumber knows his value he is confident in his ‘product’ and what he offers. Sometimes you have tradesmen who come in & do something so simple which takes seconds & they will say ‘hey just a tenner’ well that’s decent when you were thinking it might be £150 but hell it’s a tenner for a couple of minutes work!
This arena we are in needs some attitude tweaking and its in the hands of artists to change it, we need to realise our value & worth & when that buyer asks if you can make it for less say ‘no’ because your work is worth more.
