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?

So she's not running a viable business because her art won't sell for £500.

Fair play to anyone who wants to continue building a creative business while making a loss with the hope of one day making a profit, but don't get the arse with customers about it.

But no-one owes anyone else a living or is obliged to pay more than they think an item is worth. I'm sure a lot of people would love to spend their days painting and get paid for it, but instead they work at other jobs. If we all just did enjoyable things all day and expected everyone else to pay for it the economy would grind to a halt pretty quickly.

She can't be struggling that much if she's happy to lose a repeat customer in this way. Her art is worth wherever someone is willing to pay for it, so inflating the value just for customs is barmy. She obviously has a very fragile ego.

Yes, it was in one of the Screenshots. Any sympathy I might have had disappeared right there

So she posts photos/videos of her child to try and get attention/sales too? Gross.

I wish we could see the Instagram! Can you give us any clues? Even what sort of hashtag we'd find her under or the name of her town.

Okay, so I am an artist/ sell artwork.

the way she has spoken to you is atrocious. I was trying to think of reasons why she might have put the original value down, but the more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make any sense! The way she has gone straight to rant in one message is honestly quite unhinged - perhaps she has misread your message. I would say it was quite a dramatic price drop as a %, so if anyone is devaluing her work, it’s her.

I hope her correspondence hasnt spoiled the enjoyment of the art for you

I'm sure you won't, but don't do this op.
Unleashing ever crazy lurker on here would be a bad choice.

No I can't do a link because that would be vindictive.

She refers to all her art as 'she', yes. It's all a bit of a shame really.

Can you read the thread? I'm getting a bit tired of pointing out that I've repeatedly said that the way the artist behaved to OP was outrageous.

I also want to raise awareness that art is expensive for a reason.

Urgh I hate this sort of thing on Instagram. It's one thing to market yourself and your work but trying to guilt people into buying your products is so gross! I'm sure most of us would love to quit our jobs and follow our dreams but the world doesn't work like that, and if she's struggling so much then she can get a job.

Whenever I see one of those "woe is me" posts I roll my eyes and scroll on by.

Oh dear. It happens. I'm not saying it's correct but it does happen.

Can you please point out where I said that anyone owes her a living?

Actually most people probably wouldn't love to spend their days painting - most people do not have the skills to do so, or the grit to cope with the reality of life as a full time artist.

If most people did want to do this, then they would.

Leave a review.

OP I only hope you can still enjoy the artwork on your wall/table/whatever after all this polava 😢

What a plonker

would love to know who it is :)

She be crazy OP. Run away. Pretend you've never heard from her. Delete all msgs. The house is probably not her house but some poor sods she's talked her way into and craftily taken photos whilst there. Enjoy the art though ( if you actually like it).

She sounds like one of those annoying professional victim types, I wouldn’t even want her art in my house after that. Can you sell it on and make your money back?

OK, sorry, you didn't say those words.

But still I don't think something is worth x amount just because it took someone else x amount of time/materials to create. It's worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

And I think there are a lot of people who would rather be doing other things than their jobs, but know that realistically no one is going to pay them enough for it. For some that's painting, we've also got a writer on this thread, I've mentioned people I see trying to charge a fortune for knitting.

A lot of people would rather do their hobbies full time. That doesn't mean there's a realistic market for them to do so.

Surely you could have refuted the customs charge using your receipt of purchase? I’ve never known it to go on anything other than the actual purchase price because that literally dictates somethings ‘worth’.

You’ve strongly implied it, by saying the OP has got an ‘absolute bargain’ based on your notional costing of the artist’s time per hours, materials, overheads, unpaid promotion work and saying most artists ‘significantly undercharge’ for their work, hence many artists being ‘sensitive’ about a ‘touchy subject’.

When you make art of some kind, realistically you are finding it via some other form of economic activity, not passing your costs on to a notional buyer. I bought a portrait from a local artist recently. She supports her art by working as a session musician. I fund my writing via teaching. Even allowing for the fact that a buyer of one of my novels gets something infinitely replicable, not the only copy, I would have to sell a lot more than I do to ‘earn’ back a notional hourly rate for something that took a year to write.

@catPA Is it worth trying to see if you can get a refund on the customs charge? If you have something to show what you paid for it isn't the value she put on it, maybe they'd refund the difference? Wouldn't hurt to try, and at the worst they'd just say no, so no harm done?

OK well just to clarify, I absolutely don't think anyone owes her a living. I think she has responded in a completely unreasonable way and the whole 'artist poverty' victim mentality that she is spouting on instagram is ridiculous.

The point that I am making is, if people want art in their lives (which many people do), then this is the reality of life for many artists, and there is a reason why art is expensive.

Many people who do not have experience of being an artist think that artists just prance about their studios throwing paint around and having a lovely time. That is very, very far from the reality.

You can be respectful of the prices that artists charge despite the fact that you personally wouldn't buy that painting for that amount.

I wouldn't buy a marble worktop for my kitchen, I think that would be an absolutely ridiculous purchase for me, but I don't say that it's overpriced, because I appreciate that the materials are expensive, the time taken to manufacture and install it is expensive. Similarly with many items that people spend a lot of money on which you could say are 'overpriced' but don't get the same sort of stick as artists.

Much of art is about finding the right audience and if you are not in that audience it is still possible to respectfully move on and not go off on one about how outrageous it is that someone is charging so much money for a painting, when you actually don't know how much time, materials and effort have gone into it.

Anyway - this has become a much more general debate than OP's issue - in the case of OP, I think she was absolutely in the right and the artist is being ridiculous (as I've now said about a million times!)

Import taxes are on the purchase price. Customs aren’t interested in a philosophical discussion about value. I’d send them a copy of the receipt and get some of your money back.

She's a fucking headcase and I'd leave a review that reflected that without actually calling her a fucking headcase.

I'd have refused to accept the parcels, had them returned to her and demanded a refund.