The 'B' Word

How much should one charge for a rail or for door hardware?
Should one total the materials, figure a shop hourly charge, guesstimate the hours to make said project, add some for overhead, add some more for profit and then add the pile up for a price?

I think not.
Car repair is figured by the hour. Ready-made replacement parts combine with specialty tools to create a repair environment which can be measured, quantified and calculated. By that measure; the cost of a couple of tubes of paint, a brush and some canvas, plus the hours (times a rate per) gives you the price for a painting or 'marble plus a chisel times an hourly rate gives you a statue'.



If one makes the design and the work at a level of competence which the market will recognize, then we are not talking shop rates and material costs, we are talking job budgets....budget - the 'B' Word.

A serious client-consumer (often with a legion of architects, interior designers, contractors and family members in tow) will have established or agreed to a budget for the project at hand. Architects cannot specify to a client without knowing both the clients budget ("!!THAT much!??" to "Cool, when will it be done") range and the market range for the work in mind. They establish a budget.

So, when an inquiry about work lands (style and type is defined or a design is sought), the first question is "what is the budget?"
You then talk time frame: "you want it when?"
Now, with a dollar figure, a job description and a time frame (faster costs more) you can work toward a single, pre-established number and calibrate your work accordingly. More budget allows for more embellishment.

Bidding is a race to the lowest denominator, the low bidder having often lost by winning (they now have the low bid work in shop and have to produce the work for less than you wanted....pity them). Negotiating is the path to making good work (art) for a good price.
Ask for the 'B' Word next time, every time.

Art and Craft

There is an ongoing struggle between what is craft and what is art.
Art gets at least one extra zero and usually a comma in the price.
Craft work and artisan work is usually what is considered functional while art knows no boundries of function. In fact, art eschews function. It is all chiseled in some stone somewhere and cannot be overturned.......

Georgia O'Keeffe was an artist....her work art. She did pottery vessels among other things. They are art (price one, it's art)

So, were I to buy a O'Keeffe pottery vessel at auction I'd pay a very arty price. It is art.
I bring the vessel home and put it on the mantle, as art.
Years later someone uses the vessel for apples on a table at lunch......
Later still, I decide to sell the vessel, art that it is, but in my haste I forget to remove one apple.
It sells at auction for more than I paid.....art appreciates.
BUT, upon getting their art vessel home the new owners discovery an apple left from when it served part of lunch. They were robbed, it had function....remove a zero or two and sell it at a craft fair or remove the offending apple and call it art again?


Art is long - Life is short - Get Going!!!


In truth the art V craft debate is shallow.
Finely worked door hardware, functional though it may be, can convey all of the same forged form and visual meaning as if they had no function but were just adorning the door. Conversely, a red box with FEAR stenciled on it or a stack of ocean buoys may be sans function but only an emperor in seach of new clothes would call them art.

Control is better than correction in art

Art is a physical manifestation of a mental concept. To convey what you see in your mind's eye to the casual eye of the viewer you must have masterful control of your medium. This means practice, it means pushing your execution and control of the materials at hand so that they readily assume that physical representation of your idea.

Lacking control of your medium the best one can achieve is a suggestion as opposed to a conveyance of a concept through accurately expressed imagery.

In a perfect world, four years of art school would be focused on work within a medium with the sole consideration of control of the processes and materials involved. Picasso drew anatomically accurate pidgeon feet repeatedly to achieve mastery of shade and shape long before he drew his first abstract bull. For Picasso, abstract was after mastery, not instead of it.

When I sought instruction in repousse' I called art schools. I spoke to professors who knew of the process but to an individual they said it took too long to teach.....
So I taught myself and though the path of discovery without guidance was long and slow, it took less time than 4 years in college.

Time was not the issue, patience was and is. Control cannot be taught in a series of emotional expressions or through every art departments default mode of "found objects". Control of materials comes first then emotions expressed through artwork will be accurately conveyed and more importantly they will be accurately perceived.

Art: Ears & Eyes

If the eye worked like the ear there would be far less bad art in the world. If eyes reacted to bad art the way ears react to bad music then you'd run from most 'art' long before the 'artist' had the chance to launch into the title and explanation....if it has an explanation then it didn't work so it must be art.

Alas, by today's art standard, not having ever trained to read music nor having a clue how to make notes happen, I am a perfect candidate to be an improvisational jazz artist. (Recall when artists painted, musicians tooted and dancers danced....today they are all 'artists' which means that being an artist is both everything and (more often) nothing.

Before creativity must come discipline. One must master a medium technically before larding on the emotional expression stuff that passes for art instruction today. If one cannot realise a physical manifestation of a mental image...a thought accurately conveyed and portrayed in solid form, then all the art-speak in the world is for naught. Master a medium technically....then think about what you want to express.
Anything less should make your eyes hurt.