Price setting in art

The pricing of an object of art is a very common question. Every artist struggles with it and it wraps around to underlying questions:
1 Do I calculate a price and if yes, how?
2 Would this price be realistic for the market?

So you think you go about and create a very realistic price for your artwork on which you spend a numerous hours on and think you will definitely will be able to sell it. You start with question number 1:
There are many ways to calculate a the price of a work of art. You grab your costs and add an hourly rate to it. The costs can just be your materials, but some may include everything in it like your costs for having a website. Hourly rates can vary a lot as well and when picking an hourly rate you soon start to wonder what is a fair rate and that is just before you drop into the second question:

The second question is when you start to research what other similar artworks go for, or more accurately; what other artists ask for their work. So you check artworks of similar size, quality and type.  Then you realise that the prices vary a lot, but that their is a rough baseline. But within that base line an artist can still ask 3 times as much as a different artist with very comparable work. The clue partly lies in the word 'ask'. Everybody can ask something, whether they get it is something very different, but that is only part of the explanation.
The other part is a lot more important an completely ruins both questions you have just been researching, because when you were doing that research you did discover artworks actually being sold for 20 times more than the baseline of prices for a similar work of art; quality, size and type. Off course you realise that you might have gone wrong somewhere because it is difficult to asses the quality side of it. But that said, if you make landscape paintings you probably know a bit how to pull of a landscape painting and you wouldn't be judging the creation of a bronze sculpture or an installation.
I think it is safe to assume that there are a lot of artworks sold for a lot more money from one artist where similar quality artwork from another artist could have been bought by spending 10 times less.
How is that possible? Well, I think because the product, art, is very hard to judge by the average buyer. There are only a few people that can assess the quality of various different type of artworks in a good way, for the rest there are loads of people that pretend they do. So a lot of the judgements are more based on opinion, so you as a buyer might as well use your opinion when buying art, but that is where it goes wrong and where you get these freak prices. The prices go wrong in two ways: People often not just buy an artwork because they like it, but also whether their friends, perhaps more art minded friends, will like it as well. So they will follow other peoples opinions, presented as quality assessments, and buy accordingly. The second reason the prices go wrong is that a lot of people will also buy art as an investment, so they will follow where ever the market takes them. Weirdly, with all the difficulty of judging art on quality, for an art investment it isn't important to buy quality as much as you would expect, but whatever grows in price, so more the perceived quality.

You might have read this and think; what is 'wrong' about those prices, it is just how the market works. Yes, it is, but I have always had difficulty to except people behaving in a certain way not because it is better, but because everybody does that. Same with this. If one celebrity buys an artwork from artist x, then suddenly that artist can slowly push the prices up 10 fold. His quality hasn't gone up 10 fold and there are loads of other artists that would make the same art but didn't come across that celebrity to sell to.

I often get comments that I should ask more money for my sculptures, because x and y will ask the same price. But the question is always for me; do I sell it at that price? You can also wonder whether a lot higher price would create a better perceived quality, but to pull that off you need to be showing your work at the right places and does are hard to get into without someone influential.

I just hope one day that I do become a bigger name and that the works I have sold to people that appreciate my work, simply because they like it, will see their sculptures rise in price, but that they will still keep it!

New rhythm!

I have been a bit quiet recently due to, positive, family affairs. My work will be a bit slow in the near future, but I have managed to pull out some sculptures and some t-shirts designs:

The Mountain Biker

 The Roadie

Not 100% finished yet: GFC

I am currently working on decorating another skull, so stay tuned!

Robots - Mechanical parts

I think many of you have already seen quite a lot of robotics entering my sculptures and it started with my Cungo character. Somehow during the creation of that character I kept the very tight lines and angles and thought it would look cool, after that I kept the need to sometimes have a more angular approach, but also deliberately made a robot like this sculpture based on Ratchet and Cliffjumper of the first Transformers cartoon of the 80's:

Then I started mixing more bones, which I was starting to use after good use of some skulls, in my sculptures but used them in a more mechanical way and that seemed to be the right balance. Bones are basically mechanical and not that different than bike parts in a way, so when I combined them with bike parts it made a lot of sense:

After this sculpture, 'Ronny Ravage', I started wondering why I actually like robots, mechanical parts, bones etc. I think robots express a lot of power by being very rational, calculating, clear and efficient. An expression of power and control perhaps. I don't consider myself a 100% rational control freak, but I do like things clear, efficient and eventually tidy. 

Somehow the combination of bones and bike parts is the closest I have come to make something 'grim' or dark, because I generally use bright colours, more humour, more joy and these go more in the direction of 'cool'. At the moment I am finishing another bone and bike part sculpture and then I'll go back to perhaps making another skull. Check my fanpage on FB (https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Freakinstyle) for when I have finished that new sculpture!

Dr. Freakinstyle shirts

For a while I have been thinking about my discovery about the background of the clothing brand Superdry. I started checking them online, because I noticed that they make those very meaningless t-shirts by using random words that we associate with a 'wow' feeling. Can't describe it any better now, but examples of those words will draw the picture:

Elite
Team
Challenge
Trophy
Super
Epic
Real
Genuine
Class
League
Union
Legend
Crew
Authentic
Master
Race
United
….and many random names of places, provinces and countries.

I have always wondered why people would wear a t-shirt with, for example, 'Texas Challenge Trophy' without having been in Texas, without this trophy existing and even without those three words actually meaning anything, but that could just be me. I am the weird artist after all. So I didn't have to look far to discover that Superdry, which actually make some ok clothes but are ruining it with their 'empty' words,  is actually set up by to guys from Cheltenham and has nothing to do with Japan. Ok, there is a small link, this is from their website:' Inspired by a trip to Tokyo in 2003, Superdry fuses design influences from Japanese graphics and vintage Americana, with values of British tailoring. It actually raises lots of questions, but means they definitely don't come from Japan. Those random Japanese writing, could be anything really. Oh, and …..'unique urban clothing with incredible branding'….. Wow! I would love to wear a t-shirt with incredible branding, which basically means that it is all about the name.

Well, so to put my amazement and frustration about the mindless consuming of brands, I decided to make my own versions:

Yeah, so these are now on sale, off course I would like to gain some money over the efforts of two boys from Cheltenham selling meaningless crap! I see you might wonder why so much effort to point out a company that makes t-shirts? Who cares? Well, it is more my disappointment and frustration with society that people make so many uninformed choices as mindless sheep. The same thing can be seen around choices about our environment, economy, health etc. Examples are:

- Environment: always and always getting loads of plastic bags to carry their shopping, while they could have easily have taken their own bags.
- Economy: always thinking that you get a mobile for 'free' when taking a contract and still after ever finished contract taking a new one to get a new 'free' mobile phone.
- Health: thinking that only fat makes you fat and then buying 'light' products thinking that these engineered 'foods' would help them loose weight, it actually only fills the pockets of an industry that has made you fat in the first place, with some self responsibility off course.

But I also have these prints available, some in a distance based on the same idea, but won't bore you with that now:

Check them out on: www.shirtcity.co.uk/shop/drfreakinstyle Or drop me a line if you want something else!

GoGo the original

I have probably written more often about my GoGo bird, a crossover between Roadrunner and the extinct Dodo. This bird has popped up in my work every now and then in the last 4 years. It has popped up again, because the original sculpture based on this idea now finally has the base it needed. Four years ago, when I just was getting comfortable with this random idea to make sculptures, I create the first GoGo bird. Initially a test version with Fimo clay, which was the first clay I bought after being fed up with being unemployed. Then I decided to create it in epoxy clay so it would be more solid and this creation gave me the first feeling of; 'This is getting somewhere'!

Now for years later I have added the base to this sculpture that has laid the foundations the faith in myself as a sculptor.

After this sculpture I create more characters as crossovers and decided to clone them by creating a mould and casting them in resin. At the same time I was staring for 6 months at two skulls in my garden picked up during mountain biking and decided to use my style on them myself.
Initially, these two types of sculptures were quite separate and ever since I have been trying to mix them and in that process the GoGo has reappeared several times:

As a 'GoGo' skull:

As a GoGo fossil:

GoGo commissioned birds:

Last year adding to the story by adding a new predator in a fossilised scene:

I can't predict where this GoGo bird is taking me, but it was very nice to finally see a key piece getting the honour it needed by adding the base!

Oeps, I did it again!

I have been on a holiday for a few weeks, squeezing out the last few pennies on a holiday I'll probably won't make in the next decade. I went to those typical lovely tropical beaches with white sand and clear blue sea. I went to Thailand and visited some Islands in the south, deliberately not those famous tourist-run-over-alcohol-partying islands, no I went to some low profile islands with amazing beaches just for yourself. Off course I was most of the time disconnected from all the sculptures I wanted to make, but occasionally got some new ideas. However, this blogpost is mainly about what I saw there, with one item in particular.

I think most of you know my Urban Scoundrel called Traffic Cone Terrorist, which is based on the Hermit crab. Well, I saw loads and loads of these on the beaches of the islands I went to! They keep entertain me because they have such comical character. Every time I came close they would hide in their stolen shells hoping I wouldn't see them, often accompanied with the sound of  a shell clicking on the surface. Here is a video I took of one on our table.

Off course I found all kinds of shells, a knife and loads of other stuff, because that is how I am; I find stuff. Most of it I left in Thailand or gave away. I did saw two Dolphin skulls at the places I have been:

On the same island I found a vertebra of a Dolphin as well:

I didn't take it how to avoid any inconvenient Thai officials, besides, I already have bunch of these!

BUT, then I found this!

Some of you know I have been hope to get a Monkey skull for some time and I managed to find one. So initially I was very excited for 30 seconds and then realised it is illegal to just bring a Monkey skull into the UK, with the risk, although small risk, of getting caught in Thailand. Unfortunately I didn't bring it back to the UK and left it. One of the main reasons was that I would really like to exhibit it as well after I would have used it for a sculpture, but without any documents this would be a bit tricky. They don't go easy on these things. I am not too bothered with the illegal side of it, because I know I didn't take it by killing an endangered specimen and just having a skull like this in my house isn't enough for me anymore.
Yes, if anyone can donate a Monkey skull brought in the UK with the appropriate documents… I am still your man!

Anyway, I have proven again that I am able to find special bones and skulls in places completely new to me, but it might also be down to pure luck after also finding a Dolphin in the Algarve last year.

Cobra sculptures

At the start of the year I decided to create a new type of sculpture and decided to get inspired by the artists who were part of CoBrA. CoBrA was an art movement in the '40 and the name is a compilation of the cities where the leaders of this movement came from; Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.
The artist weren't very fond of the very intellectual art and the way other artists made their art too academic, so in contrast the preferred the abstract and spontaneous creation.

Both paintings by Karel Appel

So why pick this to be inspired by?
Well, first of all, I like quite a lot of the paintings. The use of bright colours is probably one of the reasons why I like them. Also, they were inspired by child like drawings and I like to create cartoon characters, both very child influenced.
Third reason is that these, mostly paintings, are abstract and I haven't done much abstract work and I somehow really want to make something more abstract.

First step was for me to start to making drawings of my own CoBrA-style and I picked these two as the best to base a sculpture on:

I made these drawings with vague idea of CoBrA in my head, so they are very different still. I have now started creating one of the two as a sculpture and already it moved away from the initial idea! The result will be fine, but realised my starting point was wrong. The sculpture coming out of it will look cool, though. This is a work-in-progress picture of today's result:

Not a great picture, but hopefully I can post the result soon on my fanpage on Facebook!