sorry you’re battling yourself over this
i hope you stop soon and quietly enjoy the sales you do get.
arrogance isn’t necessary, but there’s nothing wrong with a little self pride – give yourself a hug, man, you did good!

you don’t mention #’s, but i expect $ might have something to do with it – i expect you Undervalue your work, financially.

i’m off to do a market today – hoping to sell out and do a happy dance
hahahahahah
it’ll never happen, but i’d do a happy dance for one sale ’cause it feels good to be validated and cash seems to make that the most real.
embrace it, really, i may or may not happen again.

la

You got into a show and made sales. Be proud of yourself for that. It is not easy. People do not buy art they don’t like. If people were willing to give you money in exchange for your work they obviously saw something of value in it.

I know plenty of professional artists who have entered in shows and events where they have not had a single sale. That is the other side of the coin. You did not “cheat” anyone.

It’s ok. You are allowed to enjoy it. Feel good. Depression can steal all that. Take the good when it comes.
Besides, you too will likely have days when you are not having the sales. And the person/ newby, beside you has stuff flying out the door in sales. 🙂

Unless you were aggressively campaigning or blocking people from viewing the other artists you weren’t stealing anything. I have actually seen that happen. . . at a convention artists’ alley.

Your work made a connection with the buyers. You have a show and sales to add to your Artist CV, should you ever want to write one. Go with your first instinct to feel happy and proud that your hard work paid off.

Think of it as a welcome. I did many shows in various fields (art, jewelry, photography, etc) and what happens is the same people tend to frequent the same shows year after year, both sellers and buyers. Buyers are looking for something new, so the sellers that have been selling at that show for years tend to not sell as well simply because well, everyone who was interested bought a piece. Converse is true for new comers, it’s exciting and people want to show support so they sell more than they usually would. It’s not a reflection on theirs or your quality of work, in a way.

I know how you feel and I get the same guilt, or at least the impostor syndrome. All the time. Or, when I’m doing well. There’s plenty of long stints of loser-ville when absolutely nothing is happening. During those times, I really just buckle down on the work itself and don’t get down on myself. I tend to get down on myself when I’m winning. That’s me though. I never had support from anyone. I had the opposite and often still get really snide comments from even the closest of “friends.”

“I can’t believe people pay that kind of money for your art.”

“People think that’s real art?”

“You only won that award because you’re a Jew.” …”because you are a woman.” …”because you are disabled.” …

These things make it so that I never tell my peers when I make a sale. It’s all because I just assume they want me to fail and think I suck. It’s because I probably think I suck underneath it all and don’t deserve the good things I get.

I am not trained. I did not go to school, and I know my peers with MFAs resent me. They don’t respect me, so why should I tell them I’m getting sales? I’m just being honest here.

All that being said, I have dreadful depression. I am bipolar. I probably have borderline too (I’m guessing). I’m not one to celebrate anything good that happens because I’m used to it being fleeting, or it being pulled out from under me.

It wasn’t until the last 20 years I got into therapy and have been starting to change, and it’s been taking a long, long time to get my perspective on track.

I’m just saying I know how you feel, but despite how I feel and my personal situation, I think you should not feel bad if you are doing well. I also think comparing yourself to others isn’t a great idea, because if you do that when you’re “winning” you might also do that when you’re not, and that won’t be healthy. It’s easier for me to give advice than to apply it to myself, but don’t worry about what the other guy is doing. Just do your thing and know that this stuff ebbs and flows.

I’ve been at it for 35 years and it’s been mostly a struggle. I probably should be doing happy dances when things are going great, but I just don’t know how to do it, and if I did, I don’t want anyone to see it. It’s probably because of my history of my family peeing on any sort of good things that happened for me. Not to sound like a bummer, but that’s just the way it was.

I hope therapy helps you. As negative as I probably sound, it’s actually been helping me a lot. I used to be much worse! Ha ha.

On the one hand, you don’t want to undervalue your work in part because people often feel if something is inexpensive there must be something wrong with it. On the other hand, a new artist may not really expect to charge what an established artist can. It’s kind of the worst of all worlds. . . trying to price your work. One interesting bit of advice I heard is to price your work high enough that it makes you just a little uncomfortable.