Who Gets to Own Original Art?

“Price your art higher. That’s how you attract wealthy buyers.”

I’ve heard this advice often enough to wonder: when did the price of art become such a big part of its value?

I understand the reasoning. Artists spend years developing their skills, invest in materials, and put time and experience into every piece. Their work deserves to be valued, and they deserve to earn a living from it.

But here’s what I keep coming back to: what if the value of a painting isn’t entirely captured by its price tag?

I’ve met people at art walks who see a painting and just know. They connect with it, imagine it in their homes, and want to take it with them. They aren’t calculating its future resale value or wondering what someone else might think of their choice. Something about that painting makes them feel something, and that matters to them.

But how do you measure that?

We can calculate the cost of canvas, paint and materials. We can account for an artist’s time, experience and reputation. We can look at what similar paintings sell for. These are all ways of arriving at a price.

But how do you put a number on the painting that makes someone smile every morning? The one that reminds them of a person they love, makes their home feel more like them, or gives them a feeling they can’t quite explain?

Does that feeling count as value, too? And if it does, how do we assess it?

Perhaps that’s where things get interesting.

We often talk about art’s value as though it’s a fixed number waiting to be discovered. Yet the same painting might mean very different things to different people. One person might walk straight past it. Another might feel an immediate connection. Neither response changes the painting itself, but it changes what that painting means to each of them.

So why should the price alone tell the whole story?

I’m curious about what happens when we leave a little room for both perspectives: the artist’s understanding of what it takes to create a painting, and the collector’s understanding of what that painting is worth to them.

What if an artist set a base price for an original painting, and the collector could choose to pay more if they felt its value went beyond that amount?

It’s an idea I’m interested in exploring. Not because I have a perfect formula for measuring feelings, but because I’m not convinced that everything meaningful can be measured in dollars in the first place.

Artists deserve to be paid for their work. But perhaps there’s room to think differently about how we value it, too.

We know how to put a price on a painting. But do we know how to measure what it means to someone?

And if feelings count, who gets to decide what they’re worth?