How do you decide what products to make?

Adam Vicarel:

[When it comes to products, I sell] essentially just prints. I used to do shirts, mugs, coasters, a little bit of everything, but prints have the lowest investment for the highest return. By far I can make the most money on print sales.

James André:

Right now 30” x 40” is what I love working on. That and a more special size is 24” x 30” because it’s cheap to ship. Once you cross that line then your shipping cost is not worth it anymore a lot of times.

James Temte:

I like big. I wish I could do bigger but I have to fit them in my truck. If they fit in my truck, I can do it.

I have done ones that are three pieces that you put together and show them as one larger piece. I love doing those but it’s finding the space to create that size of work. It’s also thinking about where you’re going to show it, how you’re going to display it and eventually maybe ship it somewhere. So feasibility I need to think about.

Do you sell originals, prints, something else?

Hailey Morgan:

[I don’t sell] my original watercolor and ink pieces. When I first started I knew that I would never get as much as I thought that it was worth because it’s so personal and I put so much of myself into it. And there’s a point with art where it’s either people are going to buy it or they’re not, there’s not really an in between.

Trying to price original artwork as a beginning artist is really challenging because nobody knows your name. You can have the most amazing artwork, but unless you have that name recognition people don’t want to pay what you’ve put into it, unfortunately, and I feel too much of an emotional attachment to it.

When people want original artwork, I want it to be personal to them. So when they ask me if they can buy an original I say, Well, I don’t sell my originals but I can do something that’s tailored to you, there’s a whole process where we do a lot of communication to find out exactly what you’re looking for. And then I can recreate pieces based off of other pieces, but really with that person in mind to make it a more personal piece for them.

But I do sell the originals of pyrography, which is the wood burning and watercolor. And the reason I do that is because they’re bigger and I don’t want to store them. And I don’t do prints of them because the quality and the depth of the wood just doesn’t translate to a print and I don’t want to mess around with that.

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