Sunday, November 8, 2009

Reminding myself of my first intentions

So I guess I have to remember that a lot of what I'm doing is being an artist & sharing my art.

Yeah, it's tiny & I've seen one or two of them in my nephew's mouth, but it's still a little bit of a sculpture that only I can spit out of my fingers & brain (really, who else would come up with meatloaf piranha?).

If I sell it, that's great. If I merely make people smile from seeing tiny art, that's good too. Ultimately puppets make people happy, and happiness is really pretty kick-butt-amazing.

So the question comes in with "do I lower prices so people can own my art?" Not right now. When my prices were lower, my production had to be higher to meet demand. That compromised my workmanship as well as my creativity in the creation process. (one can't just spit out UniCorns when one is making mass-produced red fish with really creepy orange eyes, now can they?)

It'd be nice for people to want to own tiny pieces of art, but now isn't the time. I guess I'd rather people spend money on things they need...like real bedazzled tampons, rather than their finger puppet counterpart. Or food...they could buy food.

I wonder what attitude I should have going into this pirate festival this Friday, though. Do I allow it to inspire some awesome pirate themed puppets? Or do I crank out lots of easy-to-make, lower quality finger puppets that I can offer at a lower price to cover the pricey-for-me booth fee? It's a tough.

For comicon, I allow everything I encounter from now until then to inspire kick-patuchus puppets, done over such a vast period of time that I'll have enough inventory. Thankfully comicon kids appreciate tiny expensive things made with my girl-hands.

4 comments:

Kristen said...

I think your prices are perfectly fine and that you shouldn't lower them-- they are reasonable and attainable. People tend not to value what they get for cheap anyway (as a general rule).

I love your finger puppets!

Kristen said...

as far as the question you actually asked... awesome pirate puppets you could probably also sell at comicon, or crank out inventory for the sake of having inventory (also not entirely bad)... it sounds like a win win... maybe a little of both?

Price points are good ... how many cheap puppets sold would it take to cover your booth cost and how many regular priced puppets you're proud of would it take to cover the same cost?

staceyrebecca said...

Thanks Kristen!

But...if I only have time to make one or the other? Then it's a question of...which ones?

I'm going to try for some swanky hand puppets...and then in my downtime I'll try to make some smaller finger puppets.

Dain Q Gore said...

Go all out for Comic-Con. Keep in mind the kids there have saved up their funds all year to get limited edition everythings, so why not have an awesome uniquely made puppet to top off the experience. As for subject matter: My advice? Mine for Memes!