Several years ago we went to one of the last performances given by the celebrated stand-up comedian Ken Dodd. It was a very memorable occasion, and one of the gags which has remained with me was the following. Doddy was from Liverpool, of course, and the performance was in Harrogate. At one point, admitting to his Scouse origins, but acknowledging the fact that he was addressing a Yorkshire audience, he boasted that he could “speak Yorkshire”. “‘Ow much!!??” he howled, referring to the legendary economy-mindedness of people from Yorkshire. That’s my problem at the moment.
I’m in the middle of revising this web-site, and the process has thrown up all kinds of interesting questions about how a potential visitor might respond to it. One of these is puzzling me. The old (current) website gives prices for my work. I am wondering whether this is a good thing. If I put in a work to a public exhibition it will carry a commission for the gallery, and this will inflate the “notional” price by as much as 40% …. at least 25%. Should I add at least a minimal “commission” to work for sale on the website? What is more, work might remain available over quite a few years, after which it’s initial price might appear trivial in comparison with what I might ask if it were a new work.
I noticed this in particular with an item, which I painted quite a few years ago, offered in a recent exhibition. The price I asked way back then was about half what I would expect to ask these days.
A part of me believes that prices are helpful to visitors to my website, and it doesn’t really matter if these do deflate with time. A part of me thinks that it would be better if I didn’t mention prices. It would certainly be an immense fag to go through the whole site and update prices periodically. I would be very grateful for the observations of visitors to this blog. Thanks, in anticipation.