Reply by Loren

There’s a lot of wealth in your part of the
country. I would focus on showing your
work at fairs in order to get custom jobs
carving doors and stuff like that.

In terms of pricing fine art… you can price
it to set expectations of what commissions
will cost a client or you can price it to sell
quickly, eg. cheap. If I were you I would
price it at something like $10-15/ hr. invested
and price your custom work at twice that rate
to start.

Take a look at the art furniture of Wendell
Castle and John Cedarquist. There’s some
market for outrageous carved work. You could
call around to custom shops and inquire. Carving
is one of those specialty skills some shops do
better than others. I’ve seen plenty of carved
work done by shops that weren’t expert in it
and you can tell they weren’t.