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?

Not surprised she is struggling with her poor unhelpful attitude towards customers. I would leave a review of your experience. I'd be annoyed too.

Precisely because the general attitude is that it's not a proper job and shouldn't be compensated as such.

There are very few poor artists, the poor can't afford to practice it and are increasingly unlikely to be able to study it.

Like practically everything, it's poorly funded, under valued & corrupted by Capitalist social conditions.

She was being unreasonable.

@catPA she is using this as an opportunity to inflate her egotistical ‘starving artist’ persona. That’s why she’s making such an issue out of it. Otherwise why not say ‘I though tax was on original value, I’ll give you a receipt, take it up with customs’. She’s enjoying this very, very much.

I see a lot of local artists trying to sell art at crazy high prices. I don't doubt it may have taken them a lot of time etc but the actual art isn't good enough.

I renovate old oak furniture to a high standard but I'd be deluded to think I could make full time career out of it. It's a hobby for me and if I sell something it's to offset some of my costs.

I think the thing that annoys me most about buying art is that the pricing often feels so secretive. I have quite a lot so stuff on my walls, often limited edition prints at prices up to about £1,500, but so often I find an artist I like online but there is no indication of what price various pieces are intended to be sold for, just lots of “Price on Application”

That leaves me immediately feeling wary, as I don’t know if the artist is in my price range, and I feel at a disadvantage as I don’t know if the gallery is going to push me to pay a price that is higher than anything they would ever publicly stand behind.

It makes the whole gallery based art world feel deliberately intended to exclude annd intimidate, and so most of the time I just don’t follow up (and the artist loses a potential sale).

She’s not appreciated in her own lifetime, is she. Oh, woe is she.

Art is subjective. It’s worth is determined by what people will pay for it, not what the artist thinks it is worth. What if she thought it worth a million? Would she put that on a customs form? Delusional.

My understanding is that the amount listed also represents the amount that can be claimed via insurance in the event something is damaged in transit. If this had happened and the artist had stated the lower amount, she would essentially lose money, as you would have expected to recoup a full refund or new piece of artwork - with its true value being $480 or whatever the amount was pre-sale.

Being an artist as a living is obviously something that comes from deep within as most people know it’s a very precarious occupation, reliant on people’s goodwill and personal taste and, in a lot of cases, deep pockets - a blocked or leaking toilet needs a plumber, end of (also needs deep pockets unfortunately). I would imagine then that good will between artist and customer is very important (more so for the artist). Only very established artists can afford to be belligerent.

That doesn’t make sense. A refund of the original purchase price, or indeed a new piece of artwork would only be to the value of the original price paid. How can the artist lose money on a refund, if the insurance is paying it on her behalf to the value of what she was actually paid ?

What's to stop anyone shipping anything from overseas putting whatever made up 'value' they like on a customs form then? HMRC definitely don't work on the basis of 'perceived value of artwork as deemed correct by the artist', so I'd simply contact HMRC (although, I know there's nothing 'simple' about contacting HMRC these days), provide evidence of the price you paid and claim a refund on the portion of the import duty over and above the actual purchase price.

Then, I'd leave a factual review about the artist so she's fully aware that UK Customs & Revenue aren't the slightest bit interested in what SHE thinks her art's worth - only what the importer paid for it.

There's a difference between "price" and "value".

My weekly grocery bill if $250. The value of keeping my family fed is priceless.

But yes, she's a hyprocrite and living in a world she wishes were real but isn't.

I work with artists and I'm passionate about the fact that art is work, and that artists should be (and rarely are) adequately compensated for the value of their work to society, but I would come down on this self-regarding, pretentious posturing like a tonne of bricks. If she is running a business, she needs to operate according to the laws and rules that apply to businesses, including knowing how to accurately fill out a customs declaration. In your shoes I would leave a factual review warning others of her unwillingness to do so. I hope there's a mechanism for you to get the overpayment back, and I hope her gallery drops her like a stone. Most artists are not like this (thank god).

This happened to me. I thought it was because in case anything happened to it they would get a higher insurance payout.

Can you change or add another review so other customers are at least aware?

Her ‘art’ regardless of how good it is, is only worth what someone will pay for it. She couldn’t sell it at $450 so she devalued it herself. I would leave an honest review and warn other potential customers. Starving artist my arse!
Ps can you post a pic of the art and a link to her page please ?

Because insurance uses a volumetric based system for items in transit that relates to the materials used to create something, let's say for sake of argument this is canvas, oil paint, wood for frame and paper for mount. So the artist would likely recoup 50% of $480. However if they also offer a full free replacement to the individual - they will lose money - since they would also cover the new courier/materials/time spent making costs.

Your statement is in no way justifying your earlier assertion that being an artist is not a proper job.

I was using proper when I probably should have said more stable. Obviously you’re an artist and I’ve hit a nerve, it wasn’t meant maliciously I was just being pragmatic (but clumsy). Apologies if I have offended.

I do actually like a lot of art 😁

Thank you.
Yes, it is not a stable job a lot of the time and most artists I know make allowances for that. It seems like this is not the case with the artist in question or maybe they are just being a bit shifty with their marketing strategy by using "poor me" tactics. This is not how many of us operate when we commit to running a creative business.
The issues arise when an artist runs a business as a hobby i.e. by not putting any thought into operational and financial aspects of it and just winging it hoping to acquire a raving fan base and then discovering years down the line that they are not making any profit. A lot of artists I know think of themselves as small business owners first and foremost which is a very different kettle of fish.

I don't think anyone's riled up.

I think people are pointing out that it's an artist's choice to run an art based business, and that if your outgoings are not covered by your sales then you don't have a viable business. Whether you're a plumber or an artist, that's still true.

Agreed. Also I think where art is different to say, plumbing, is that plenty of people are willing to make art for free or at a loss (with the acknowledgement that's not the same thing as running a business, but I know people who primarily make art as a hobby then sell it, on a small scale, at fairs around Xmas time, via etsy etc). Whilst people don't want to do plumbing as a hobby (usually!). So that can be seen to devalue it as a general product, rightly or wrongly. See also the knitters wanting £200 for a scarf, when there are people who enjoy knitting enough to just to give it away for free. This is definitely getting theoretical but I think the value of something is perceived differently when it is seen as something that is fun to do.

It sounds like she's an e-beggar.

This sounds like a poor / nightmarish arrangement for both sides... I do freelance work and in the contract I specify the exact number of rounds of revisions I'll make

Not my experience. All I’ve been required to do is provide a receipt for the amount paid for the item and it’s been reimbursed. If the seller bought similar insurance then all she would need is proof of the amount she had refunded.

No. The general attitude is that art is not as valuable as a commercial object as artists need it to be to earn a living from it. That’s the issue here.

If you want other people to feed and clothe you by giving you money you have to do something for them that is worth their time and effort getting that money themselves so they can exchange it for whatever you produce. And most art just isn’t worth that much as an object.

Places that produce things for sale that can’t do it at a price that other people want to pay for it close down. Artists who can’t produce art that other people want to pay much for aren’t good enough at producing objects for sale to do so for a living.

The value of art is in being an artist, in expressing yourself, in looking at the world through that eye. It’s not, generally, in the object that is created through art.