Why My Punch Paintings Cost $800

Let's begin by discussing the rational laws of Economics.

Economics begins with assumptions of scarcity, no transaction fees, and no taxes. With scarcity, price elasticiy exits. Except price elasticity doesn't apply to art except reversely for very high end collectors(ie trophies).

There is no graph that supply and demand will meet to determine a price for a painting before diminishing returns. The cost of the materials is insignificant, maybe $50. Paintings sell for hundreds to thousands to millions. Cost of materials is not relative.

Thus, the economics of painting don't really fit into my Economics degree I earned thirty years ago.

This is because paintings are outside of time in that they are always present, always giving, always abundant.

Time is a mental construct of division, form and scarcity. Paintings aren't about time. Time ceases to exist when you are able to watch yourself think. Then one comes aware that thinking is finite and not able to define the infinite. That comes from 10,00 hours and a gift. Paintings are about temperment and being able to return to a certain temperment that evolves only through the work. Practice, not cost.

An artwork should give back more than it took to make it. That is unique in the world of resources. That would be fission. In a true work of art (a work with "punch") it happens.

This idea of temperment is outside of time. Its only measurement is what the Artist shows through all his work. That is a rare thing that will go up in value. Unsigned works that could only come from one temperment. One knowledge of one Self. A true painting is signed all over. Inability to do anything else is the most rare ability.

After many many years of practice if the artist is gifted and receptive, work becomes a moving meditation. Who should be paid to meditate? No one. Abundance is meditation. Meditation is not a fragment.

This meditation is how the artist changes through his work. New levels open up as fragrances of knowing. Of finding.

That is why $800 is important. I'm pretty sure that If I die tomorrow my paintings will get $800 at auction . I own an oil of the most prominent painter in Detroit for the earlier part of last century. Value? $800. Another painter, the best painter ever to come out of Michigan, his work sells for $800 at auction. One of the midwests biggest galleries in the 1980s sold contemporary French impressionists for tens of thousands. Current value at auction for these are pennies on the dollar. At auction my paintings have sold for more. I really don't believe there is a better framed $800 painiting available.