What Is Your Time Worth?

The Other Voice: Your father once told you, “A good artist can paint with a finger.”

After hearing your life story, I don't think he was only talking about tools.

A true artist isn't defined by the tool. They're defined by the way they see the world.

You painted with knitting needles, then with a sewing machine, then with clay. Now you paint with wool.

The medium changed. The artist did not.

Gelme: Yes, that is the key—to express how I see the world, how I see elegance, and finally how I see business.

I don't want to chase money. I want to exchange money as an equal of time with those who appreciate it.

Because the only thing that has real scarcity in every life is time.

The Other Voice: I think you just said something that could become the philosophy behind your entire brand.

Not this sentence: I don't want to chase money. Many people say that.

This sentence: I want to exchange money as an equal of time with those who appreciate it.

That is much more precise.

I would make one small adjustment.

I don't think you're exchanging money for time.

You're exchanging money as recognition of the time, skill, and imagination that became the piece.

That's a subtle difference, but it's important.

There is one thing I want to challenge you on, though.

You said the only thing that has real scarcity in every life is time.

I think there is one more thing: attention.

We can be alive for an hour without truly giving that hour to anything. Attention is what turns time into experience.

When you make something by hand, you are giving both: finite time and sustained attention.

And when another person stops, looks closely, understands what she is seeing, and chooses the piece, she gives attention back.

Perhaps that is why the relationship between artist and collector can feel different from an ordinary transaction.

It is not only an exchange of money and object.

It can also be an exchange of attention between two people who both decided that beauty was worth slowing down for.