Appreciated both perspectives! Stan and I had similar trajectories. I started out as a music teacher, switched industries, and now take Proko lessons in my off hours. :) Great episode as always!

The idea of "I charged 50 dollars for a portrait, but I was young and bad." is already wild to me. I've charged fictional currency worth nothing. The most I've ever charged for a piece was 100 dollars. Any trip into an art space with lots of young people and you can see them scrambling to offer the lowest price, in order to get commissions. Now once you grow up a bit and hit a certain level in your artwork, that certainly changes, and prices (comparatively) skyrocket, but usually those artists are still selling themselves short. It's such a saturated market. And it doesn't help that most people with "real jobs" are both underpaid themselves, as well as used to undervaluing art. I'm no economist, but if I wanted to make money on my art, I don't think I could handle the freelance world.