Melbourne jewellery galleries and artists: part 4

Just a quick update to my little series of posts on the topic of the relationship of jewellers to galleries in Melbourne …

Anna Davern kindly (bravely) wrote a comment on the most recent post, and has just today published a post with musing of her own on the topic …

It has given me some insight to the individual artist’s struggle with such matters … it can’t be easy.

Thank you Anna.

I’d love to know about others’ thoughts too.

…

Update (28th November)

Thanks also to Katherine Bowman for sharing her thoughts on her post yesterday too.

The expectation of discounts is a prickly one – I think a customer has no inherent right to expect such a thing (though they may hope), and if that is their sole motivation for contacting the artist directly then I would question their genuine understanding and valuing of the handmade.

When I commission work from artists privately, I have asked them if they would make me something and I ask them what they will charge me for it. Simple.

If an artist chooses to offer me a discount, of course I would not decline. However far be it from me to expect or ask for one – heavens!! Often I will already have a feel for what I may expect to pay before asking (I don’t want to be embarrassed, or waste their time). And in the rare case that I’m not in a position to pay a price for the time being, I postpone the purchase until I can.

The way I see it – I think it’s more than fair for an artist to ask for retail price when they have received a private commission. To my way of thinking, while the artist may not have all the setup fees and commissions etc. that a retail space may, I feel like the ‘extra’ an artist may receive by selling a piece privately versus through a gallery is a kind of bonus for them. That’s not quite the right word … hopefully you see what I mean.

And I absolutely feel for Anna when she writes how she relies totally on the honesty of the approaching customer to understand if there is a particular gallery that has fostered the interest in her work. On top of that, I begin to feel uncomfortable about how difficult it could become to manage when your work is in a few galleries as well as online, any of which could have influenced the potential purchaser.

What has also come home through thinking about this is the sincere mutual respect between galleries and artists – each wanting to do the best for the other. There is no suggestion that all artists can go ‘renegade’ and depart from the gallery system … and I wouldn’t think many would want to anyway, for galleries in Melbourne offer so more to an artist than just a shelf to sell work on (critique, support, encouragement, expertise in selling, managing enquiries, new opportunities, audiences and more … the list is pretty long).

I perceive an awkward conflict though between this and in the need for an artist to make a living; an artist would usually receive more money ‘in the hand’ through charging full retail price on a private commission than they would if the same piece is sold through a gallery.

Though it sometimes feels a bit wrong to sully the beauty of making with the reality of money…

[Just to be clear: I don’t sell through a gallery or private commissions … as I’ve recently written, I hardly make any more! So the above is just my sense of the issue.]

…

Update (28th November): Lucy has added a great comment too – thank you! I particularly love her comment that she’d rather spend time making than selling … beautifully said.

…