How Your Money Mindset Shapes Your Art Practice

Antrese Wood: Hey, it's Antrese, and welcome to another episode of the Savvy Painter Podcast. If you are new to the podcast, welcome, and if you're a longtime listener, welcome back. Savvy Painter is the podcast for artists who want practical tactical tips to create a meaningful art practice that is fulfilling and supports you.

Today we have another roundtable episode with a few members of Growth Studio. We're going to talk about money and art. I know it's a touchy subject, but it's actually one of my favorites because it usually brings things to light, so many hidden beliefs, some that may help you, some that may be holding you back, but pulling them apart, taking a look at them is really, really helpful to move you forward in your art practice.

How we think about money and its relationship to our art impacts what we do in our studio. It impacts our ability to create. It impacts our ability to create the art and to create an art practice that supports and sustains you. We're going to talk all about that today. Today I have Leslie, Merrie, and Beverly from Growth Studio. Let's dive in. Let's just take a couple of minutes to introduce yourselves. Start with you, Merrie. Go ahead and give us a little hello.

Merrie Koehlert: Hi there. My name is Merrie Koehlert. I live in the New York area. I love everything painting. Oil paint, gouache, acrylic. Right now I'm really into doing nocturnal landscapes.

Antrese Wood: Leslie.

Leslie Cannon: I'm Leslie Cannon and I am from Atlanta, Georgia. I paint primarily in acrylics. I focus a lot on abstracts and landscapes and nudes and florals and whatever else comes to my mind to paint. Yeah, just a little bit of everything.

Antrese Wood: Beverly.

Beverly Woodhall: Hi, Antrese. So glad to be here. My name's Beverly Woodhall, and I live on the east coast of North Carolina. My artwork is currently large and abstract with lots of layers underneath the oil painting that eventually is on top, if that makes sense.

Antrese Wood: Lots and lots of layers, lots of playfulness happening in there, yep. We're going to talk about the thing that is not supposed to go together, art and money. Oh, my gosh, how taboo, let's do it. I mean, it is and it isn't. What I want to start with is some of the assumptions that you've heard or you maybe have had yourself about money and about how that relates to art and money. Leslie, let's start with you.

Leslie Cannon: That is an easy question for me to answer because I immediately go back to going off to college knowing I wanted to do something with art, I knew from an early age I was an artist it just was my identity and my father was adamant that I did not major in art because you can't make money as an artist and I was told that and heard that from other people as well. That was, of course, many years ago, before social media, I made it easier to sell art.

I became an art teacher and majored in both education and art so that I could support myself with my art and my practice and have worked hard, a lot of it coming through from you and Growth Studio to change those limiting beliefs that I have about money and scarcity and fear. I wanted in on this talk because everything's changed for me about pricing my artwork from doing this work.

Antrese Wood: Wow, I love that. Okay. You know how I am. I just want to dig in right away. This is Antrese restraining herself. Merrie, what about you, what are some of the thoughts and beliefs that you had or you heard about money and art?

Merrie Koehlert: I think really obvious one is that people think that art is really fun, so it should be free. Because when you're making art, you're always having fun.

Antrese Wood: Always.

Merrie Koehlert: Great. Yeah, that's a good one.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. Which, oh my God, when you think about it, if you're having fun, you shouldn't be paid. That's an underlying rule.

Merrie Koehlert: Right. It's crazy.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. That's insane. That's so funny. What about you, Beverly?

Beverly Woodhall: I too was an artist right out immediately and I knew I was an artist and that was that. I would make art constantly out of anything and everything I could. My parents, like Leslie, were not supportive at all. In fact, they thought I was crazy and would insult whatever I made. It was painful, it was very painful.

My mom would say art is only for the rich. Rich people make art and rich people buy art. You'll never be able to do any of that. College cannot be about art, oh God. I had applied to an art school in high school and I got into it and they found out about it and I was all excited and they were like, “Ooh, no way.” It was very much a fight to create and I'm such a creative person, it was hard because it's me. They're beating me up and making me feel like I was crazy.

Then of course in school, being such an artist in school, people thought I was crazy and weird. I always had that on me that you're so strange and different and weird in a negative way. I have grown to learn that it's not a negative thing at all. That was a lifelong lesson. Then when it came to selling my artwork and money, it depends on the time in my life. I know when I was young, I would sell my artwork easily to people, just classmates or whoever, neighbors, you know?

Then I guess skip forward to when I had finished raising my daughter and I had to come up with “What am I to do with myself now?” because I was a very hands-on parent and I was just like, “I just want to paint. I want to make paintings and art,” and so we turned a backyard, a little building we have out there into a little art studio and I literally painted in private. I didn't even try to sell or show my art. I felt embarrassed.

Antrese Wood: That's because growing up, that was the message that you got that this wasn’t a real career, and that wasn't the way it was [inaudible].

Beverly Woodhall: There’s something wrong almost. Finally, with my husband's incredible support for our business, we ended up building an addition to our business, and long story short, he's making furniture, and I got an art studio upstairs, a beautiful, huge, incredible, I designed art studio of my dreams. I felt like, “Well, I'm going to do this, and it's going to be real, and I'm going to sell the art, because I'm going to hang it downstairs in our little showroom, and I'm going to go around town and sell my art.”

I thought it was difficult to go around town and sell my art, that didn't work out quite well yet. But selling the artwork in here, I have actually sold artwork and started selling artwork. The pricing was always the most difficult aspect. I know that was a long answer, but it was a very difficult part to the story.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. Well, I mean, which makes sense. So, I mean, with all of our ideas around art, if the programming, for lack of a better term, that we have is this isn't going to work, or you can't make a living out of that, or that's only for rich people and that's not you, and this idea of being forbidden to do it, then all of those things are for sure going to impact how, especially if we're not aware of it, they're going to impact the lens that we see everything through.

Obviously, that's going to impact how we price our work. Even something as simple as, I mean simple, but as you can't make a living out of selling paintings, underneath this is the idea that “Oh, well, then that must mean that the paintings are cheap or that they'll be hard to sell.”

Beverly Woodhall: And you're not worthy.

Antrese Wood: Yeah.

Beverly Woodhall: I used to hide and paint in my closet at a big closet and actually we did have a lot of money so that always struck me too. We weren't like wealthy but we were pretty good, well off and so I didn't even know what that meant. It seemed like some kind of abstract people that, you know.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, and it's all relative. You nodded your head when I said that, Leslie, and then Merrie, I'm going to come to you. What were you thinking?

Leslie Cannon: I think, because I, and y'all know this because we've talked about it so much, but I have struggled with if my painting doesn't sell, then it's not good. I put too much emphasis on the selling of my work rather than the creating it, and that is my struggle. I know that just sitting here talking about it, a lot of it comes from the beliefs that we heard, starving artists or you can't do this.

Let me just be clear, it wasn't just my dad that said that, it was a college professor and the general public and there weren't a lot of people in my orbit or my husband's orbit, and he came from a very different socioeconomic background than I did, that valued buying original art. There were other things that were valued.

It's interesting to me as I grow my business and grow my following and my clientele, the things that I hear from both sides of the family, but also something that came up when I was telling my parents because they are my biggest fans, I'll say that. They are at every show that they can get to. My dad said to me one time, "I'm so proud of you for investing in yourself," talking about Growth Studio, "And that's something I never did. I'm so proud of you for doing that."

It was a great conversation and they're blown away. Well, I tell them all the time, I'm getting this much for a piece of artwork and I mean, they're just stunned. It's a wonderful full circle and teaching generational patterns are changing. I know that that's probably when I get too driven for the sale for the price or I place too much emphasis on how many paintings did I sell during a show, that's my success if I sold a lot of paintings and so I have to work really hard to fight against, “No, I made a lot of connections or I shared a lot of things. I met new artists.” We talk about that a lot too, it's not just the bottom line. It's all tied up with that money.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. It is, and what I think is really interesting about what you just said is that what you just described is the people around you had no reference point for an artist who is selling their work and who is making money off of their work. They're going to fill in the blanks with their imagination of what's possible, which is in large part reinforced by what they see around them or what they would do themselves.

When you sell a painting and your parents are proud of you, of course, but they're also like, “Wow, I can't believe she sold a painting for that much,” it's partly because in a way, they've just never seen that before. Representation matters in this context too, that if you don't see an artist who's selling their work and who's making a living off of it, yeah, you have no idea. If you're not a person who creates or buys art, then the filter that you're looking through is, “Well, I would never pay that so nobody else would.” That's the unspoken assumption underneath it. It's really hard to get out from under that. Merrie, you look like you had something you wanted to add.

Merrie Koehlert: Yeah. You guys reminded me that at those critical junctions in your life when you're either getting reinforced, or you're listening to naysayers disenchant you from your dreams, I think one of the things that was very much a part of the time that I graduated art school was that the gallery system was extremely intimidating. I left school in Michigan and I moved to New York City.

The notion that you take your slides, which were the slides like that and you walk into a studio, I mean, into a gallery and there are these gorgeous people scowling at you, and you're supposed to say, “Hi, here's my art. Don't you want to buy it?” it just was the most intimidating thing. That was one hard thing to overcome, but the world has changed, which is really great.

Then another problem for me was grad school. It seemed like when I met people who were starting to show in galleries, there was like a feeder between grad school and galleries. At the time, I really was excited to make money and just go out there and see how I could sell my art. I always toyed with this idea of grad school. It always seemed like, “Well, if you go to grad school, then you will follow this formula because that will lead you to the gallery.” I definitely think that's something that a lot of people in Growth Studio have thought about or experienced.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, yeah. What's implicit in that is the idea that there's a rule book, that there's a path that you are supposed to take, and also in a way that that means that that's how you succeed, which comes with its own limitations. Because if you do take that path and your belief is that that's what is supposed to happen is that if I go to grad school and I do this thing, then I'm going to get into a gallery and you don't, most people think the problem is them. That I did something or my art isn't good enough when that's not the case.

All of these things, and this is why I love having these conversations and why I wanted to bring you all on for this and money in particular is because if you're not even aware that that is the implication that you have bought into, then your only option is to feel bad that you didn't get it, which I think is so sad. I think it's so wrong and it's so sad. I think it's probably caused a lot of people to walk away from their art. That's the part that really for me does honestly break my heart because I do think we need more artists.

Beverly Woodhall: I think that can have a two cents in here. It's like droves of people go to LA to be an actor and most of them fail and the reason they fail isn't because they're not a good actor, it's because they quit. I think it's similar. Life isn't easy. No one's going to give us anything. You get out there and fight for yourself. If you don't get in a gallery or 10 galleries, you can just go home and say, “I suck, I quit,” or whatever, or you just keep going and figure out other ways or you just keep going. I was painting in private thinking it was almost like a crime or something for years of my life, but I never quit.

Antrese Wood: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the only way I personally believe that we really fail is if we walk away from it, is if we let it get to us. Let's talk a little bit about pricing your work. Because we do talk about this a lot in Growth Studio. I want to hear from you guys. Tell me, we'll start with Leslie, we'll just circle around. How do you price your work and how have your thoughts about pricing your work changed?

Leslie Cannon: Well, it would have been really helpful to have your spreadsheet about five years ago and I loved your podcast that broke down all the different ways of pricing. Never really thought about how many ways you can come at it. I realized I do a little bit of a couple of things. I start basically with size. I have a basic price based on the inches of the work. I add to it, if it's a commission, I add to it, if I feel like it's going to be difficult and take me longer so I throw in time.

Then there's the emotional aspect that I have started honing in on more intuitively. It goes to that question of, “How am I going to feel when I'm painting this for my client and when they walk away with it?” I don't ever want to feel resentful because that means I did not price my work for what I feel like is my value.

I have learned that that is just not how I want to feel. The opposite end is that feeling of, “Oh, did I charge them too much?” which I rarely have because I end up working more on my paintings. I just usually underestimate how long or how simply I can pull something off. Partly because it's hard for me to say, "Yes, it's good enough, Leslie, that is done," and I want it to be perfect, especially if it's a commission.

I have a lot of factors that I put into my prices. I'm not a big factory of paintings. I can take the time to do several sketches and work out my formula to where I feel really good about the price. That being said, I've done it now enough to where if my client says, “That doesn't fit my budget,” I'm okay with it. I'm past the part where I need to make every sale or that I need to make everyone happy. The big lesson for me is I stay out of their wallet.

Antrese Wood: What are some thoughts or beliefs that you adopted that got you to that place? Because for somebody listening, I can imagine that that's like, “Okay, yep, got it, got it,” then I got to this place where if they say that's too much, I'm okay with it. I can imagine a lot of people listening to this are like, “Wait, oh my God, what? How did you do that?”

Leslie Cannon: It's been a very intentional practice. My morning pages help by writing down my feelings about it. There's a trust that if I “lose” that sale or that commission, there is another one that will come. I will be okay. I will have something else to paint. I have had enough paintings, commissions mostly where I have been halfway through and resentful of the client and had feelings that were not good feelings to come out of my head onto my canvas because I changed my mind and changed my price to make it work.

I changed what I decided the value of my work was and I lowered it and it just doesn't work. On the rare occasions where you have a client that ends up not being happy anyway, it's just a place I don't want to be. So I work hard to protect the value of my work and the feelings I have while I'm painting. I want to be excited and energized by fulfilling my client's vision and their joyfulness when they get it. It's just that's the best feeling. I just want to protect that. It was not overnight. It was something that I have intentionally worked on.

Antrese Wood: I love it. Yeah. Just knowing to intentionally work on it too, I think is really important because it's like when we're sitting in our studio painting and doing all these things, it's scary. It's so hard, I think, to have any way to gauge, “Is this okay? Can I ask for this much? How do I gauge that when somebody says no to my painting? What are they actually saying no to?”

Leslie Cannon: Yes. There's always, I just worked with a client recently, and she was very upfront at the beginning with her limited budget. I love the connection with clients with commissions. I knew that it was going to be a surprise gift for parents for Christmas. I mean, you'd say surprise gift to me and I am all in. I love it. We worked around several options, different substrates, a payment plan, and I was able to meet her budget and also protect my value of my painting. I felt really good about it, and I know she's just overjoyed that I was able to do this.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. I love that, Merrie, Beverly, I'm coming to you next, but I think that piece of it is so good for people to hear because you have a client who's saying, "This isn't in my budget," and a lot of artists would just, at that moment, back down and be like, "Oh, okay, yeah," if they have that belief that my painting isn't worth it, but when you have the belief that my painting is worth it, then it's a totally different conversation because then it's like, “Oh, okay, well, my painting is worth this money. So lowering the price is off the table, but what are our other options?”

That changes everything. That just kind of, again, illustrates that whatever mindset we have about pricing and about our value and our painting's value will impact the way that we behave when we're talking about our work, creating it, all of the things. Merrie, do you have some thoughts?

Merrie Koehlert: Leslie was saying that her methods for pricing her work, we've definitely talked about it here, in the beginning, I priced my work hourly, and I was doing some murals for restaurants and it worked out. But something like a pitfall in that direction is that I find that people will look at a piece of art and they'll say, "How long did it take you to make that?" Then they quickly do the math, they're like, "Oh, it took 10 hours." That means you're making whatever, $400 an hour or something like that.

But it's never really about the hours that it takes, it's about how there's so much behind every piece of artwork, so much experience. It's years, it's an accumulation of everything that you've learned. It is so hard to put a price on it.

Antrese Wood: Mm, mm. What do you think about that now, Merrie, this idea that it's hard to price my artwork? Because you're not doing murals now.

Merrie Koehlert: Yeah, I think it's essential. Ultimately, I think when I was in a transition from teaching and then really focusing on technique, the final realization of a piece of art is that it gets sold. I have put my head in the sand and just wanted to work on my technique and just get into what I would consider the more front side. But more and more, I realized the other side is so essential. It's ultimately sharing the work and finding it a home, a happy home or someone might love it.

Antrese Wood: Why do you say that's essential for you?

Merrie Koehlert: It's almost hard to articulate. It feels like why would you want to hide something special, something that you worked hard on? Things that are beautiful are worth sharing. You'll hear about like a poet who doesn't share their work, I want to hear that poetry, or a musician that doesn't sing their music in public, I want to hear that music. That's the soup of life.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. Beverly, you look like you have something to say.

Beverly Woodhall: Yeah. I was just thinking about it for me, because for so long, I didn't show my work or sell my work. I just kept piling it up. Now that I've been selling my work, I feel like when you make a painting and I think someone spoke about it being fun, yes, art making is fun, but it is also work. It's also serious work and knowledge. You're creating almost a life of its own. You're making something new that came from you. To not pass it on and let it live its life on someone's walls is sad. That's why I think pricing can be flexible for me.

Antrese Wood: Tell me a little bit more about that. What do you mean?

Beverly Woodhall: I'm not like Leslie at all in pricing. I wouldn't even know how to do what she does. when I finish a painting, I just feel like before you gave us that chart, I would just give it a price based on, “Well, it's a certain size,” and I just thought the price would be in a range based on other artwork that I've seen that I think is at my level. That's what I really would go on. It was more of a gut feeling.

The problem with that was there's no consistency. I've started to price my work based on your chart. I feel very relaxed now because my assistant would say, "Okay, when it's all said and done, what's the price?" And I just freeze and be like, "I don't know, whatever, I don't know." So it was always very, very difficult. Now I feel really good about the price per inch. Then if it's framed, I add the framing charge. That's what I'm doing now.

Antrese Wood: I'd love to hear from all of you on this, because there's pricing the work. There's picking the number, but it has its own head drama to it, of like, “Can I do this? What are other people charging? Am I allowed to do this?” That internal almost belief that there's this rule book, this price police that's going to come after you like, “This is the way it's supposed to be done and on page 8472, we have Leslie Cannon’s prices and oh, she deviated. We're coming down.”

Beverly Woodhall: I think this portion of money that we're talking about right now, this subject is something that I got from all the different things that have been said and talked about in Growth Studio, just all the things about, it could not even be about money, just about trusting yourself, or all the things that make you feel valuable.

For the longest time, I didn't think I'd ever be able to price my work correctly, where people would come in, love it, buy it, and feel good about the price. I would feel good about the price. I didn't think that would ever happen for me. It is so recent that I've gotten comfortable with my pricing.

Antrese Wood: What do you think made the difference for you? How did you get comfortable with your pricing?

Beverly Woodhall: It wasn't one thing. It was like I said, a culmination of all the different things we've talked about for the past two years that I've been involved in Growth Studio, churning around in there in that subconscious. Then of course, the charts certainly helped, but I was like, “Well, what numbers from the chart that you know what number to pick?” It's a great chart, but what number do I pick? Well, I picked one and so far so good.

Antrese Wood: I love it. Leslie.

Leslie Cannon: I remember specifically the Zoom call we had and you told a story about pricing a commission and sending the bid to the client and it was a big number. It was literally the biggest number I had ever heard for somebody I knew that got from a painting. The client took a minute and you said you thought, “Oh, here it comes.” Their answer was, “Are you sure this is enough?” I feel like that broke my own little glass ceiling because I thought, “Is it really possible? Am I that good?” Then I'm like, “It's not about you being good.” It took me, it was probably a year, but I hit that number on my mural. It stayed with me. I said, “I will get that number one day. I will build my [inaudible].

Antrese Wood: Oh my God, I didn't know. I love it.

Leslie Cannon: Yes, I had that number to break. That goes back to, if we don't have a reference point, then how do we know? It is a very solitary business. For a lot of us, it'd be great to be an intern with a famous artist and see how they do everything, but I didn't have that. I don't have a boss. I didn't train. It was like, “Hah, I'm an artist. Here I am.” Not knowing how to price things or what can you get other than going to galleries and looking at Instagram and seeing what other artists are selling, it just was really eye-opening for me and it's one of those little thoughts that stay with you. You're like, “I'm going to try to be that”.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, now I know that that's possible. Let's talk about what we mean when we talk about the value of the painting. Because you've heard me talk about this enough. I want to hear how you've internalized that and what your thoughts are on that. Do you want to start, Merrie?

Merrie Koehlert: Yeah. I think the value of painting, there's an indirect quotient to how much you value it yourself. I think that's something I really learned at Growth Studio, is that you gotta have your own back. If you don't love your art, how are you going to sell it? If you're not able to articulate what it is you love about it, and sometimes you need to help a collector along or someone who's interested explain to them what's special about it, and it might work or it might not work.

The ways that you can sabotage yourself by assuming that your collector can't afford to buy your art, making assumptions about what people want or don't want, and maybe even underselling your art. I think having that sense of your own value really, really trickles out into the marketplace.

Antrese Wood: 100%. Yeah. It's so crucial. If you really think about that, it's like if you're a chef and you have a restaurant and you don't like the way that your food tastes, how does that even work? “Our special today is this really gross pasta and I'm really sorry, the tomatoes aren't chopped right.” It doesn't work. You have to love your work.

That I think is another block in the pricing and in the whole conversation about money is getting over that piece of it too, that A, it's okay for you to love your own work. It doesn't make you arrogant, it doesn't make you a bad person. You are allowed and encouraged to absolutely fall in love with your work because if you can't do that, there's no possible way for you to describe to somebody else why they should buy your painting. The second that they make a micro expression on their face, if you don't love your work, you will interpret that as they don't either when maybe their nose just itches.

Leslie Cannon: It's when we get down to Antrese’s therapy part of our calls because it feels a lot like being able to have self-love. You have to be able to love your artwork and love the creator and the gift that the artist has. It's hard to have the self-confidence and the self-esteem to say, “I painted this and this is how much it costs.”

Antrese Wood: Do you want to buy it?

Leslie Cannon: Do you want to buy it? Not saying, “Um, this is my,” What was the example you used one time? “This is my gallon of milk. It's okay. Do you want it?” You said, “Do you want to buy this gallon of milk? No. What's wrong with it?”

Antrese Wood: Exactly. It’s like it’s past its expiration date. Why are you talking about it like that? You need to tell me that's the freshest gallon of milk that could ever be and how wonderful it tastes and how much you love that gallon of milk because otherwise, I'm suspicious.

Leslie Cannon: Exactly.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. It's so funny. I love phrasing it. I love coming up with these ways of expressing it so you can really see it because it is funny like what we do and how we talk about our work and how we talk about the price, even like the pricing of it.

Leslie Cannon: Go to the Rolling Stones Ticket Concert. That one still is my best go-to when I'm struggling. If you buy a ticket to see the Rolling Stones, you save up your money, you want to hear and see Mick Jagger doing Mick Jagger. He would never call you up before the show and go, "Hey, would you like it if I sang it slower? Or would you like it if I did it this way?" No, he's the expert. He's who I'm paying to go see. When I'm painting and somebody has chosen me and used their hard-earned money for me to paint, I need to be Mick Jagger.

Antrese Wood: Yes.

Leslie Cannon: I need to do what they're paying me to do.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, 100%. Beverly, you have a thought.

Beverly Woodhall: I would not answer that with a number at all, but for me, the value of my work is very complex because, first of all, I put a lot of energy and myself into the work. I put a lot of thought. I put a lot of time into staring at it, thinking about it, dreaming about it, building it, changing it, redoing it, and finding where it ultimately lands.

You can't say, “Okay, you get $10 an hour for that painting.” It doesn't work that way in my brain at all. I think the value of my work has changed because, in the beginning, I didn't value my work at all. Now when I look back, I have a lot of compassion for me, the person I was, and the work that I did. I'm like, “Wow, it isn't so horrible at all. You were experimenting and learning and doing the best you could on your own. It has led you to some really good decisions, like joining Growth Studio.”

Then there are lots of complicated things that we learn in Growth Studio. You just hit us. Just, it's like you just know what to tell us and talk about that. It's incredible. You just guide us so well. You just know. It's a very comfortable safe place to really go into the meat of the subject of art and our art and just art in general.

When then it comes time to put a price on it, I finally become much more confident, but that did not come easy. I don't think the work I'm making now has the same value as the stuff I made toward the beginning because I've got more to add to it now that I've learned and mastered. I've learned and mastered many more art techniques and ideas now, so the value does go up.

I'm much more comfortable now. I could never talk about my work very well. I'd stumble and didn't even know what I could even say. Now I can really speak to it. It'll flow right out of my tongue. If someone were to say that the price is too high, why would you want someone to challenge you about the price?

I think for me, they don't get the painting. They don't understand it. It's not worth it to them. I can certainly try to talk about it and try to convince them to buy it. But I'm not really here to do that.

Antrese Wood: Such a good answer. I'd love to hear all your thoughts on what do you think the value is to the collector. Why do people buy art?

Beverly Woodhall: I'm a collector and I buy art. I hope I can go first this time. I buy art when I travel. I always pick up a piece of artwork, of original artwork. It can be really tiny or it can be large. It can be anything. My home is filled with things that I've picked up on my travels and I don't buy t-shirts and stuff. I buy art.

The reason I buy art is because I want to support a local artist and I want to remember my trip. Every time I see the art, it just makes my heart feel good that I did support a local artist. I don't usually buy the popular artist's artwork. Usually, I find a little bit of a more unusual artist. That's why I buy art.

Sometimes I buy art in a show right here in my town because it speaks to me and I want to look at it a lot. I think it's something I won't get tired of and bored. It's a beautiful thing to have in your home. Some people probably buy art because of the artist and they want to copycat all the other people buying the art because, “Oh, you should have this art.”

That's fine for them. I think a lot of people aren't in touch with art. It's not really in their vocabulary and when they have art on the wall, it's not really that meaningful. To find someone who does want your art and it is meaningful is what you really are looking for, I think.

Leslie Cannon: I did the same thing. Just a couple of years ago, I bought myself my first big piece of art and I'm still just so proud of it. I did meet the artist so it was good for me to be on the other side of it. My hope is that when someone buys a piece of my art, it's because it made a connection.

It spoke to them, it either evoked a memory of a place or a time or a meal they ate. It just touched them so that every time they walked past it, it made them happy. It's that simple for me. If somebody buys it because it matches their couch, okay, great. But I'm hoping, my biggest hope is that it always brings them joy, bottom line.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. That's one of the things that I like to think about when we're talking about pricing and when you are saying, "Here's this painting I did. Here's the price. Would you like to buy it?" The thing that you're thinking about is them walking into their home and feeling that joy and just seeing that beauty. I know this is sacrilegious for artists, but some people do buy paintings because it matches the decor of that room. That doesn't have to be an insult.

Leslie Cannon: No, it makes them very happy. They found the thing that completed the room.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. I think some of that insult comes from the belief, again, all these beliefs. This belief that if somebody buys the art to complete that room, then they can only paint paintings that match couches. There's this weird line, these two dots that are not connected then become connected and it becomes a thing that is like, “This is how I have to paint now.”

That's not the case. Maybe there are some artists who are like, “Yeah, I paint this color because that's the color trend of the year,” great, I don't think there's anybody in Growth Studio so far that we've had that does that. But if that's your thing, that's your thing.

But what you're doing with that work is like when somebody buys that piece and it matches the couch or whatever, they're walking into the room and they are walking into a room that is beautiful and it's their aesthetic, and that makes them happy and so the painting is a part of “I’m designing my home to be this place of relaxation and joy. There's a whole chaos out happening in the world and when I come home, this is my sanctuary and that painting when I look at it creates this experience for me. That's part of how I relax. That's part of what makes this a beautiful space for me.”

If we're thinking about that when we're talking about our work and that experience, and what is the value of having a place that you come home to, and you're just like, “Oh, my gosh, everything in this room is beautiful and it's me,” and they get to experience that every single day, that's what I want you to think about when you're pricing and when you're saying your price. That is part of that conversation of staying out of their pockets, staying out of their wallets, presumably 99% of the time, we are talking to another adult who is fully capable of making their own choices about how they spend their money.

Here we go. Antrese is on her soapbox. I feel so strongly about this, but because if you get out of the headspace that a lot of artists typically are in, which is, “I've not seen the manual of the pricing, and I don't know if I'm allowed to charge this. Also, I know I made this quarter-of-an-inch error on that painting and that kills me so now I've got to discount it at 50% because it's not my best work. I'm so sorry I'm even asking you if you want to buy this painting,” we spin into these places and I will now get off my soapbox.

Beverly Woodhall: I think one of the things you were talking about, Antrese, you brought up something for me. Some artists paint decorative and they paint their own work kind of deal where if they need to make more money. I wondered about your thoughts about that. Was that clear?

Some people paint decorative things that they know are going to sell. Then they also paint the stuff that's really coming out of their soul, and it doesn't sell quite as much as that. They just can't sell those pieces as frequently as they can sell these more simple decorative pieces of art.

Antrese Wood: There's such a spectrum on that question. Let's dive in. There's a spectrum, sometimes the way we describe it is like, “Okay, this is my real work. Then I create this other stuff that's fake and it's not me.” There's a huge spectrum in there. We may have a series of paintings, and this is something that can be challenging I think if you're not in a good headspace about it.

If you think about it, there are a number of paintings that might be in a gallery. Then let's say that you go into the exploratory phase of your art. You're in your studio and you're playing and you're doing all the stuff and you're in that phase where “I don't know where this is going to go. I'm just playing with the materials or I'm suddenly going to be just really obsessed with painting this particular motif. I'm going to just play and play and play and see where that takes me.”

“Am I selling myself out if I continue to sell my work that I know the gallery wants, that the gallery has sold before, that when I did it when I created that work, I created it in good faith, meaning that was something that I'm genuinely interested in?” That's one spectrum of like, “Hey, here's this work that the gallery loves because every time paint these paintings”—I'm going to totally make this up—“of paintings of Yosemite, everybody buys them.” Those paintings of Yosemite are genuine. Now I know that those are selling so I go back to Yosemite and I create some more paintings.

My point of view on that is I've got a couple of things and some people might scream at whatever it is that they're listening to this on, but one thing is that situation where my artwork, our artwork, I believe is always evolving and it should always be evolving.

There is going to be a quantity of work that is out there, meaning it's outside of what you normally show, let's say in a gallery because you're continuing to push yourself, play, and discover things about your work. I really do hope that that's always true, that you always have this body of work that's just in your mind a little bit crazy because you're playing.

Then let's say there is a person who's doing work that is like, “Okay, I'm going to paint these pink houses,” I don't know. I have no idea, “I'm going to paint these pink houses because they always sell and I'm painting them because they sell.” Now a lot of people will point their finger and be like, “Oh, sell out. You're a terrible artist.”

If you're doing the work that matters to you in your studio and you have to feed yourself and your family and you have to buy paint and you have to pay rent and the way that you do that is to paint pink houses, in my opinion, go for it. Do it. Because you need to support yourself. Why fall on the sword of an ideology that's made up? Who are you trying to impress? The internet trolls? Who's going to come after you and does their opinion really matter to you?

I see people come after artists online and I'm just like, “What are you even doing with your life?” I have opinions. I'm sorry. But people coming at artists and telling them how they should or shouldn't live their lives and run their studios and how they should or shouldn't feed themselves and their family, I'm just like, “Hmm, no.” This is where I turn my momma bear comes in and you guys have seen that where I'm just like, "Hm-mm, shut that down." Sorry, a little off-topic.

Merrie Koehlert: I actually think it's very on topic and going back to what we were talking about in the beginning which is, how do you make a living as an artist? Which is essentially what it is. Every time you're able to make money with your art, you buy yourself time in the studio. It's a very important cycle.

Antrese Wood: Yes.

Merrie Koehlert: I’m with you, Antrese. Everyone's got to do it themselves. You do you, get it done.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. Listen to me, like this sounds so obvious, there are so many artists that did things to support themselves, but there are plenty, plenty of—and this drives me crazy, but I'll use it only because I know that people understand what I'm saying—Artists with a capital A that supported themselves by making decorative art, meaning painting flowers on plates or whatever it is or doing posters or doing illustrations.

Technically—more blasphemy from Antrese—like Michelangelo, that was paid for. Did that for money. You need to eat, you're no good to anybody if you're not fed and you're not resourced. I am not kidding when I say this, the world needs your art. You need to make sure that you can continue to create it in whatever way that you can. You guys are used to this. I start yelling at you guys and now I'm yelling at the podcast.

Leslie Cannon: This is a good place to say, “Join Growth Studio now.”

Antrese Wood: Do you want Antrese to yell at you? Join Growth Studio.

Leslie Cannon: That might be a whole nother podcast.

Merrie Koehlert: Or do you want a mama bear?

Leslie Cannon: That might be the wrong demographic.

Antrese Wood: I have opinions, and they almost always protect the artist at all costs. Yes, 100%. This question, I think, is really good. What thoughts do you now notice around money or pricing that you were oblivious to before? Who wants to start?

Beverly Woodhall: Well, I'll say I was oblivious to the fact that using that chart could really make pricing feel easier and consistent. There's that for sure. We'll just leave that for there right now.

Antrese Wood: Perfect.

Leslie Cannon: I was not aware of how much I was changing my prices to fit the show or the group or the situation. The people-pleaser in me, before I got the system or before I was really intentional in writing every one of my prices down and noticing, I would get right inside my clients’ wallets and come up with my own prices.

It's been a while, but when you asked that question, it was like chasing the sale again. I would try to fit the prices to please everybody so that I would sell a lot, so I would feel good about my artwork. If I sold a lot, then I was good.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, and also the underlying belief there is that people buy art because of the price and they don't. No. They don't at all.

Leslie Cannon: That's right.

Beverly Woodhall: That's another lesson.

Leslie Cannon: Yes, that's a big one.

Beverly Woodhall: Huge.

Antrese Wood: Okay, and then how has being in Growth Studio helped you with your thoughts around money and pricing?

Beverly Woodhall: A ton. It's everything. Absolutely everything. That we're worthy. That there's a way to price your art. That you shouldn't pay attention to what you think. That someone can afford or wants to pay and got to know your own value. There are loads of things that we've discussed today. I would say I've gone from one end of the spectrum to the other around money. I'm very comfortable with it now, which is something I thought would never ever happen.

Antrese Wood: Oh, my God, I love that. How about you, Leslie?

Leslie Cannon: What you just brought up, that if I didn't sell a piece of artwork, it isn't because I didn't price it right. All of the things that Beverly said, the value, the having your own back, all of that works towards us as artists being able to believe in ourselves and believe the value of our work.

Having a group to say these things out loud is so valuable in itself. You make us say, “All right. What do you charge for that size of painting?” It can get so uncomfortable, but yet it's so supportive at the same time. You only grow when you get to the uncomfortable bits and parts of it. It's also courage. It's the courage to say, “I'm going to try this. I'm going to work on my pricing.”

Antrese Wood: Be really intentional about it. It’s so good.

Beverly Woodhall: I feel like with Growth Studio and Antrese, I know that I've come to the calls in all sorts of different states of mind and with different parts of my art and I always feel like you're so gentle and it doesn't matter how we present. You're not judging us. You're not making us feel like in any way less than or wrong or a shame, any of those things. I mean, you act like that's not maybe a big deal, but that that's a very big deal.

Antrese Wood: Oh, thank you. I genuinely see all of you as just full-on rock stars. That's what I see when I come on the calls. Merrie, how about you? Did you have something you wanted to add?

Merrie Koehlert: Yes. Well, rock stars need fans, so it's nice to feel like there's a fan out there. I think every time we talk about money and it comes up a lot, I would have this gut punch, like, “Oh, we're going to talk about money,” because it is so loaded. It makes you feel vulnerable when you're selling your work and what's your value.

I think what I've learned is that I'm more than my art and it’s not personal. If someone doesn't want my art, that's okay. Pick yourself up and go show it to the next person. Just being able to identify is such a huge help because if you don't know what scares you, then you don't know how to approach it to even try to make it go away or attack it.

Antrese Wood: Beautifully said. Yeah. So good. All right. Anything I didn't ask you that you wanted to talk about?

Merrie Koehlert: Well, I think the good thing about it is it's not like we talk about it in a difficult way. It's brought up sometimes as a topic, but it always has tentacles and leads us to their meanings and contributors to the money talk.

Like I said, I think in Growth Studio, a lot of things are said and taught and told in a lot of different ways and we absorb them over and over again and from many angles. It's not just, ”Okay, we're going to have a money talk today.” It doesn’t work like that in Growth Studio at all.

Antrese Wood: Awesome. Leslie, what were you going to say?

Leslie Cannon: When I wrote a couple of things down, this was a shout-out again to Beverly in her play, because one of your questions was, what are some sneaky ways that your thoughts about money can come into your practice? Occasionally, I feel it when I'm trying to be in the exploratory stage.

I'm like, "Oh, I'm wasting paper. I'm wasting paint." And I'm all like, "Nope, Beverly tells me to play because she's the best playground friend that I have." I feel that a lot. It's my "Don't be wasteful, everything needs to be going towards."

Beverly Woodhall: You know, Leslie, but it is, and you're not being wasteful, and it is going towards producing art. I encourage you to keep doing it and don't give up.

Leslie Cannon: She just keeps telling me that and I'm working on it.

Beverly Woodhall: Because it's going to take you places and you're going to be like, “Oh, wow, we should have done this sooner.”

Leslie Cannon: I hope so.

Beverly Woodhall: I believe in it strongly.

Leslie Cannon: Well, you're very good at it.

Merrie Koehlert: Another thing about Growth Studio is that we love to cheer each other on. Each of your successes feels like success to me and watching the arc of growth, the people who feel like a tribe to me brings you so much transitive excitement.

Leslie Cannon: I agree a hundred percent.

Beverly Woodhall: Yeah. It's really nice when someone new comes in too and you and you get a fresh flavor, and group grows and I really like that too.

Antrese Wood: Well, I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Leslie Cannon, Merrie Koehlert, and Beverly Woodhall. If you're curious, you should definitely go see examples of their work in the show notes of this episode. Now, if you've been listening to this whole series, you have a good sense of the wide range of topics that we cover inside Growth Studio.

The thing I love about Growth Studio is that it really is a lot of fun. We don't shy away from the tough topics that will help you grow yourself and your art practice. These things come up and fortunately, I have this very unique blend of coaching expertise, business expertise, and painting expertise.

I'm just one of those people who when I'm curious about something, I will go all in. That's how I ended up with this giant collection of coaching certificates to prove if anyone has any doubt just how much of a nerd I am. But lucky for you, that all works in your favor.

Whether you're ready to join Growth Studio or not, I will continue to share freely what I know here on the podcast. When you work with me, you get even more. Plus, you get to hang out with amazing artists like Leslie, Merrie, Beverly, and everyone else that you've been meeting these past few episodes. Okay, so if you're ready to join us, the link is in the show notes, or you can go to savvypainter.com/join. Either way, I will continue to support and cheer you on. Okay, that's what I have for you this week. I will see you next week here on the podcast. Talk soon.

Hey, if you want to take what you are learning here on The Savvy Painter Podcast even further, join us in Growth Studio. This is where you will take what you've learned here on the podcast and apply it, practice it, and take these concepts from just good ideas that maybe you'll do someday to habits that become part of your practice. Growth Studio is a unique community of artists. We meet multiple times a week for live coaching, critiques, and demos. Just go to savvypainter.com/join.