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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Dominus-Temporis on 2026-03-10 16:15:58+00:00.
My girlfriend of five months is an artist and I accompanied her to a rather significant art show. I know dick all about art. I don't own jewelry; everything on my walls is mass produced, and the only things on my shelves are souvenirs. Nevertheless, she worked so hard over the past several months that I figured I would be supportive and at least make sure she was well supplied on drinks and snacks while she talked to clients.
It also gave me the opportunity to meet more of her artist friends. Here is where I will mention that they all are, like her, native artists. I am not; I am white. This is unpopular with some people. They respect her choices, but it still puts me on thin ice.
Now, my girlfriend works with silver and gold. The price of which has gone up dramatically over the last year, meaning that everything that she and artists like her make has also increased in price. There is open discussion about this. My GF is well known, but has some much more established friends, one in particular who makes pottery and earthen sculpture.
This is where I fucked up. Said sculpter mentioned to the group that she sold a piece for $20,000. Cause for celebration. It was a rather large piece and so I, curious, asked how much of that was raw materials and how much of that value was just talent. Everyone got very quiet and my girlfriend quickly stepped in to change the subject.
Apparently, it is extremely rude to ask an artist how much it cost to *make* a piece. You really shouldn't even ask how much they sold a piece for and count yourself lucky if they volunteer that information. I found this out about an hour later when the first thing my GF said as soon as we were out of earshot of the other artists was how offensive it was for me to ask that.
I'm an engineer for the government. So not only is my salary public, I regularly have to discuss with my co-workers how much they cost per hour to ensure that a project's labor budget is high enough. I assumed that "better" artists simply had a higher "hourly rate" that they added to cost of equipment and materials and bam, that's how much a piece is worth. Art pricing does not work this way. It especially does not work that way with something like clay, that is literally dirt cheap.
So my GF, as she later told me, had to spend the rest of the evening trying to quietly explain why I would ask such an offensive question to someone with such a valuable name. I meanwhile, had to try to make it up to this artist without mentioning what I had said that I was trying to indirectly apologize for.
I might not be banned from future shows, but I'm definitely not allowed to ask any questions.
TL;DR: Clay comes from the ground. You don't ask an artist how much their art sold for, and you sure as hell don't ask them how much it cost to make.