Sanity check please - was I 'devaluing her art' or is this seller a headcase?

[catPA]

I bought some items from an online artist based in Canada. The first purchase was for just under £200 and I paid about £45 in customs tax for that. Fine.

After my first purchase (but while it was still in transit), I looked at her Instagram and the seller had done various posts about how her business is struggling to survive, 'artist poverty is real', '30% off with code 'help me pay my electric bill' etc. I thought all this seemed a bit 'unusual,' (also possibly a bit 'tone deaf' as she lives in a huge, beautiful house by the sea and does her art full time so she can be a SAHM - not a choice many women could make)! But I thought fair enough, she's being honest; I genuinely love her art and good for her living her dream. I wanted to support her business if I could.

So I bought another item for £280 which had previously been listed at about £450 (I think). She was doing a sale across all her work.

I couldn't have afforded it at £450 and also the higher customs tax would have been a bit much for me, on balance.

Anyway, both packages didn't arrive for ages and it turned out they were being held at the post office, pending customs charges. The first package, as I said, required a £45 customs tax payment. However, the second package, required a customs tax payment of £95! I asked how that could be possible, when I had paid £280 for the item. Then I saw that the unexpectedly high customs tax was because the seller had stated the value of goods as £450 (or the equivalent in Canadian dollars).

I messaged the seller and told her that surely it's standard practice to state the actual transaction price on a package for customs purposes.

Thst was it. She was straight into "What do you expect me to do?" etc. Then went into the woe-is-me 'artist poverty is real' and how could I be devaluing her art in this way. She got very personalised very quickly. She said she will never devalue her work again because I had done that for her! She said I was essentially asking her to defraud customs. She basically said she wished she had never sold me anything because I don't value her art!

Ffs I had spent over £600 on it (with the tax). I was talking about labelling for customs tax - I believe it should be the transaction amount stated, not some previous price. How is that in my control?

In summary, she became very unprofessional with me and then blocked me.

I had left her a really positive comment on Instagram as well - before all this!

Apologies for the length.

WIBU?

Also, should I leave her a review stating my experience?

@babaisyou

I mean I’m not sure, but I think it’s based on the commercial value. Otherwise the artist could sell the painting abroad for £5 to a ‘friend’ to avoid paying the required tax.

And then customs would add a charge because it’s clearly been underpriced to avoid paying the required charge.

I see this a lot with people trying to sell their knitting too. I'm sure it did cost you £20 of wool and took you 15 hours to knit a scarf, but that doesn't mean anyone has to pay you £200 for it.

Customs duty is based on value, not cost. I think she's basically being vain in a very arty way. What is the value of a painting is basically determined by what someone is prepared to pay for it. However, in this artist's mind, she can set the value of her work. As far as she is concerned, she has sold you a painting worth £450 (or whatever) at a discount. In her mind it is still "worth" £450.

I suspect she's struggling to sell any of her paintings, hence the sale. From her perspective, this doesn't mean that she's overvalued her work, it means that the rest of the world doesn't properly appreciate the true value of her work. By questioning her valuation, you have struck directly at her sense of worth, which may well be pretty fragile.

You don't have to be mad to be an artist... but it helps, huh?

The value, it's more now on what someone will pay

I mean, has she any knowledge at all of art? Pretty much the point of art as a commercial endeavour is not that you charge what is costs to make. It's what someone is willing to pay. Otherwise, the Mona Lisa would be cheap as chips

No they don’t benefit, they just don’t understand the implications of the figures they enter. I think some online retailers do not ship abroad very often, particularly in big countries like USA and Canada where most of their customers and domestic. Consequently they do not always understand that different countries have different rules on tax paid for receipt of goods.

The issue is in how they handle this. I had one American retailer who used the same paperwork from a previous transaction which stung me for vat and tax in more than i actually paid for the item. I dropped them a polite note to let them know for future customers and they were so lovely about it, saying I was their only UK customer and they didn’t realise. They sent me something to say sorry marked as a gift and zero value, and all subsequent orders have been spot on. They do annual releases of their products and I get a little handwritten note with my parcel saying they look out for my order every year, and thanks for being a great supporter. That’s how a small online craft seller gets and keeps loyal customers!

I thought it was VALUE though . Is the price you pay the value ?
She gave you a discount on the full price which is the real value .
So she was correct to put this price as the value I would think ?

We have impoverished artists in every country. Stop importing and you'll stop paying import duty.

When the piece has sold recently between arms length parties, and there is no evidence since of sales at a higher price, that IS the value. That’s how valuations work.

I’m pretty sure you (one) can’t just put a price they value their own item at, as that could be anything. It should be the price it was bought for or ‘starving’ artists could inflate the price to whatever they want.

She sounds like a spoilt, entitled, pretentious twerp.

Yes.

The artist will set the price of the work, usually based on an hourly rate for making it, plus the cost of materials and overheads (studio space/ rent, and if they are lucky - sick pay, pension etc.) - although including sick pay and pensions usually isn't an option for artists.

Say it takes you 4 working days to make a painting. That's 30 hours, give or take. At a modest rate of £15 an hour, that is 30 x 15 = £450 already. For one painting. Not including materials and overheads, which will add on another chunk. Then you have to spend time promoting your work, running your business, accounting, social media, etc. All of that is unpaid.

At £500 for two pieces, which she has probably spent quite a lot of time making, you are likely getting an absolute bargain based on this calculation.

I can understand why she is sensitive about this topic - most artists are.

No that isn’t how value works. Value is pretty much what someone is willing to pay not how much you think your own piece of work should cost. I can value my house at a million pounds but no one is going to buy it for that so it’s value is not a million pounds.

But the truth is that there are very few artists who overcharge for their work, once they have given themselves a modest hourly rate and paid overheads and materials.

The full price of a piece of work charged by artists is usually very reasonable (see the calculation in my post above).

The vast, vast majority of artists are significantly undercharging for the actual time and money spent on making their work.

Which is why it is a touchy subject.

In any other business field you don’t get sympathy for running a loss making enterprise, it’s just a reality that some pursuits don’t pay unless you are particularly good at what you do.

If people won’t pay what an artist views to be a fair price then the artwork isn’t worth producing for a commercial market.

I understand the time and materials that go into a piece are probably more than people would fully appreciate. But currently, she is advertising pieces with 30% off. That's her decision.

A problem for me now would be the negative feelings I have for the artist after this behaviour. I can’t see myself wanting ‘her art’ on my wall. You need to look at art and enjoy it not be reminded of an unpleasant experience.

That’s ridiculous. It’s difficult to make a living as an artist, absolutely — most artists have jobs as well, because they can’t sell their works at prices that cover costs and time spent, but that’s the deal. The artists I know teach at art schools, or have an unrelated job. I am a novelist and I teach at a university, as does nearly every writer I know. The fact that I can’t make a living wage from selling books doesn’t make it legitimate for me to try to insist on a different jacket price because I think the actual, ‘discounted’ retail rate ‘devalues’ my labour.

OP, definitely don’t buy art in future because of a sob story. If she can’t pay her electricity bill by selling work, she needs to find a paying job that supports her art.

@thatthatsnotacactus

Also I can't stand it when artists refer to their pieces as "she", bleugh.

Is that what she did? 😂😂
I have no idea about Art, but what an utter knobhead 😁

Indeed - and her reaction to you was absolutely outrageous, as I've said.

But I can fully understand the underlying feelings behind it.

Not unreasonable. Tax is on the transaction value not on what the seller wants to think the item is worth. The woman is a pain.

If you actually read my posts you will see that I am not defending the way the artist behaved, I think she was outrageously rude and unreasonable.

I am simply raising awareness that artists are hardly ever rich, usually struggle to make ends meet, and I can understand why she is sensitive.

That is indeed 'the deal' - but there are also people who seem to think artists are getting rich because they are charging £1000 for a painting - when in reality it probably isn't even covering their costs.

My sympathies. I was caught out similarly about ten years ago. There was a US based style system which could determine what you should wear based on a questionnaire covering personality and physical attributes.

You could get a pack of style cards, access to videos and Facebook group for an additional fee, it was one of those things that was constantly discounted by more than 50%. I thought I was getting a good deal by paying about $40 instead of $150 until I got hit by customs charges on $150.

The worst thing was when I collected the package it was in an A5 cardboard envelope and was a small folder with half a dozen cards describing the style. The videos were rambling and the Facebook group was very cultish. I felt ripped off paying $40 never mind the full price.

I wish I could link to the Instagram. Just before I purchased from her, she posted about her daughter taking cards into school saying 'help my mum - artist poverty is real.' It is post after post like this. She also posts items of her work saying "I can't believe this hadn't sold." I thought she was just being unusually honest, but now I see it as embarrassing. Also, she lives in a huge listed house that literally looks like something out of a Homes and Gardens magazine (inside and out). She has a husband from what I can see. She has no qualms posting photos of her home, followed by some poverty post the next day. She has a small following who are all "We hear ya hun" and this kind of thing. What does she think the rest of the world are doing?

Credit to her in that her pieces are lovely and I bought into her story, but blimey.

A starving artist here 😁
We do struggle to make full time living from our work because not everyone can afford art at full price (understandably) which is why a lot of us have second jobs or supportive partners (or both, in my case). However, the issue of customs is completely unrelated to any "undervaluing of art". The cost of the item should be stated as purchase price plus shipping. What likely have happened is that the artist put a full value of the artwork for insurance purposes (in case the item gets lost in the mail) and didn't really consider that our customs threshold is the lowest in the world. I believe, in Canada you can import up to $1000 worth of goods before customs kick in.
The only right thing to do in this case would be to apologise profusely, not to blame your patron for any presumed sins. Poor business and gives the rest of us a bad name.

Sounds like she's being quite disingenuous. But you never know the truth behind social media posts really.

The victim mentality is definitely unappealing and 'artist poverty' is not exactly an original topic.

The way to combat that is to be proactive and find more innovative ways to make money, rather than simply complaining until someone buys something because they feel sorry for you.

I don't think I would buy her work even if I liked it tbh.

Are you sure you still want the work - it will just remind you of this now - will you really enjoy it?