Buy Things You Love!

 

What I find in life is that things that I consider buying tend to look really expensive to me when I have my eyes closed to options that are truly exciting, that really fit my personality, that evidence great care and thought in their making–things that I love!  I get caught up in trying to minimize my expenses rather than voting (with my dollars) for beautiful things.  This kind of an attitude really takes the joy out of life!  In difficult economic times, it is especially easy to fall into this trap.

As soon as I find something I love, all of a sudden the constraints I was feeling before go away.  Instead of thinking about why I can't afford something, I think about the beauty of the thing that can be brought into the world.  Maybe it's an architect-designed house rather than a tract home, or a handsome, well-made suit of clothes rather than an ill-fitting budget ensemble.

One of the things I hear about my frames from potential customers is that people love them, but the price seems high to them.  I think this is because people are used to thinking about glasses in the sense of buying whatever their vision insurance will pay for.  From that perspective, yes my frames are expensive.

But if you think of my frames as functional art, the price does not look so high.  Paintings or photographs or jewelry that you love can easily cost what my frames cost (and much more).  And my frames easily take as much time to make as those other works of art (and more!).  I will never recoup the time and expense I incurred to develop these frames, all I ask is that people who love them will focus on the remarkable objects that they are (if I may humbly say) and be willing to pay a reasonable amount to cover the large amount of hand work that it takes to build each frame.  And the care and attention that I give to each frame.  And the service that I provide after the sale in the event of any problems.

Go ahead and use your vision insurance to buy a standard pair of frames.  There is nothing wrong with buying inexpensive frames (and it's good to have a backup pair anyway!).  But if you love my frames, go ahead and buy them too (at no risk to you if they don't work out for you)–but buy them from your art budget (you do have an 'art budget' don't you ;-))?

Peter