With the holiday season coming, I am tempted to come up with flashy ads about discounts, holiday themed works and to take advantage of the surge in needing to buy something to prove you love someone. Those e-newsletters have flooded my inbox.

The name of my art business is however derived from a Latin term of “no goods”. It is a reminder to me that what I value is non-material.

I struggled for some time about the concept of selling art and how to square that with my belief that we did not need more “stuff” in our lives.

Ultimately, I ended up liking the idea of putting my work to be available for others and built the courage to click “submit” on my first Etsy post.

I go back to The Minimalists concept of how we should only add things to our lives that bring value.

Most of the time though I don’t think people buy my work because they had dreamed of a painting like that to own for years.

It is rather an upvote to say to me they like what I do and want me to keep making more.

Can I legitimately tell people to not buy my work, but only if it adds value to them?

I’m sure I have had people buy my work on a whim. Visual Art generally has no utilitarian value—unless it’s furniture, it doesn’t do much but hang on a wall. Therefore it must have meant something to someone on the purchase.

There’s no “black Friday” sale. I shudder at the concept of commoditizing my work. I don’t do countdowns on webpages to psychologically make you feel desperate to buy. I’ve looked at some ads sometimes for my own buying habits but I get jaded to think that I would adopt the same tactics of retailers.

I’ll have to hope that my patrons are the ones who most understand why they buy my work.