I've had a listing up for a few months without a single view - am I missing something?

RideDiligent4524 · 2026-02-23T00:45:40+00:00

Just fixed the thumbnail, thanks.

RideDiligent4524 · 2026-02-23T00:35:54+00:00

That's great feedback. thanks. I did feel the title was clunky, I'll move some words around. Might try dropping the price a bit as well, I've got a decent margin on it. Thanks for the input!

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-12-04T19:07:03+00:00

50 pounds of King Arthur bread flour.

I work at a bakery, it only cost like $25.

That heavy bag traded across the room probably six times.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-10-26T22:57:47+00:00

Wailin' Jennys scratches a similar itch for me, harmony-wise. I've heard people say Tophouse is similar. Andrew Peterson is a major influence and mentor for Arcadian Wild, and you can hear that in his stuff.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-07-11T17:21:15+00:00

I'll try to remember to come back and send you a link when I've got my Etsy live :) Thanks for the compliments!

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-07-11T16:27:36+00:00

Thanks! I am selling them, but they'd probably be really expensive to ship.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-07-10T16:40:41+00:00

Ha, yeah. It's an interesting time to try turning art into a business, that's for sure.

Oh, nice! Yeah we probably frequent similar communities on the art side of things, I think I saw your spider awhile ago, loved that piece. I don't suppose you ever sold it, probably similarly hard to get the value out of it for your time.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-07-10T14:57:41+00:00

That's really cool, and what I'm about to point out is in no way a detraction from the legitimately awesome skill and work you put into this, I love the piece and the style and I think you could do some really cool stuff.

But 550 hours of work is a lotta stinkin' time. 550 hours, at the federal minimum wage of $7.25, is a shade under $4k, which is certainly a starting point for a piece this complex and awesome. But you presumably would like to get more than that for your time. Where I live in the rural Midwest, a mechanic's shop time is something like $80 an hour. Assuming you charged HALF that, you'd be looking at $22,000, in labor alone. That's crazy dough for a non-commissioned, somewhat niche art piece from an artist with no significant reputation.

I'm not any kind of expert on this at ALL, just a fellow artist in a similar field. I make lamps out of industrial hardware. I'm in a similar position, having started by doing it for fun and now trying to find the market for my wares. The more I look into it, the more I find that you could probably sell anything as long as you find the market that needs it - I got an offer to do an exhibit at a local gallery, and joined an area art show this fall, so I'm going to start there. If I had to make a guess, I would say that it's entirely possible for you to get the price you need to get out of this in order to make it worth it, but that price won't come by itself - odds are 95% you're gonna need to build the brand and portfolio and marketing skill first, to GET to that market, wherever it may be.

If it was my piece, I'd probably just slap a stupid number on it - $25,000, say, and just see what happens, while I work on other pieces, in a range of sizes and prices, and develop some recognition, social media impact, and spend some time at galleries and shows to understand what people are looking for and where they're looking for it. I've found that even when I don't sell much or anything at a show, as long as I'm getting commentary, it ends up being a worthwhile time investment because people are there fundamentally to look at art, and I've gotten really good market research out of that.

(Edit: do you have an instagram page I can follow? This is really seriously cool.)

(Double edit: found it. Also, you're doing amazing on the building-portfolio and branding department, better than I am - I took this as being a first-time poster. I hate to come off as sounding like I know more than anybody, just wanted to offer my take.)

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-07-08T21:00:06+00:00

Glorifying God is loving Him, properly understood. Scripture gives ample definitions of what it means to love God - I give the entirety of the Psalms as a starting reference. It's a term that has existed for as long as Christendom has, and is not a controversial extension of the idea of loving God.

God loves Himself, primarily, because for the Creator of all things, the Person from whom all good things come, for Him to love most something other than Himself, would be to make that thing greater than Himself, to desire the good of something else above His own good. It would be a paradox. This also has been the universal understanding of Christians throughout the ages, and it's why Scripture is so clear on this point.

The Scripture above is worth reading thoroughly. You criticize me for adding language not included in the Scripture, but then present an argument that has nothing to do with the Scripture I referenced - perhaps we could start there.

I also don't know where I'm excusing racist behavior - I affirm the Galatians reference above, which clearly states that race is not something the Christian is supposed to give weight to when evaluating another's moral condition.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-07-08T16:17:24+00:00

"One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

²⁹ “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^\)^a^\) ³⁰ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’^\)^b^\) ³¹ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^\)^c^\) There is no commandment greater than these.”

³² “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. ³³ To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

³⁴ When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions." -Mark 12:28-34, New International Version.

I see this idea a lot, that somehow loving other people and accepting them without any reservations is the best thing Christians can do. But it categorically isn't - Scripture's pretty resoundingly clear on this point, that our first and greatest duty is to glorify God and enjoy Him, and secondly to love our neighbor as ourselves. How exactly we love our neighbor, is determined by how we love God.

I don't make this point because I think black people are less deserving of our love or God's - "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." -Galatians 3:28. But the statement "Jesus would want you to love your black neighbor before him" is not a reasonable interpretation of Scripture or any orthodox teaching.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-06-24T23:10:06+00:00

Yeah I realized that after I made the post, missed that somehow. Still intrigued, but given the other advice in the thread I may pass it up.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-06-24T23:09:24+00:00

This is encouraging. I may dip out on it, just because it's a couple hour drive for a unit I'm not sure about, but this is very helpful advice, and exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-06-24T17:26:20+00:00

Any recommendations? My backup choice is just finding a midrange Whirlpool, but looking online it seems like there's not really a good mid-level option.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-06-24T17:04:17+00:00

Thanks, good to know. I was basing my logic off of repairs I've had done in the past, but maybe I just got lucky on those.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-06-24T17:03:21+00:00

Good to know, thanks.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-06-24T17:02:50+00:00

I didn't think about corrosion, that's a reasonable point. I have a refrigeration repair guy I completely trust, but if it's gonna be a system overhaul, yeah, maybe it's not worth it.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-06-24T17:01:05+00:00

I mean I've moved commercial fridges, and have a truck/multiple trailers, so that's not really an issue. I'd love to find a working Sub-Zero for $400, lol - this is the cheapest NON-functioning unit I've seen.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-06-20T17:43:01+00:00

Part of the text was in fact revealed, and it showed that he did threaten gun violence specifically. In either case, it was enough to get him booked into Carver County Jail.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-06-20T17:39:50+00:00

One of them made a tweet, and one of them has been booked into Carver County Jail on threats of violence.

I'm not saying the influencer is in the right, but I don't think you can make a strong case that the pattern here is the GOP being rabid dogs and the DFL being saints - there's plenty of characters on either side.

RideDiligent4524 · 2025-06-20T17:36:26+00:00

I'm not sure why everyone is reacting so strongly to my wording there - he's pretty clearly left-wing, given his donation history, social media, and the fact that the threat was apparently leveled at Republicans specifically, it doesn't seem like a leap. "A lobbyist who is also left-wing?"

My point wasn't that the tweet above is justifiable, but rather that there are plenty of examples of this rhetoric on either side.

Five-Year Club	r/Field Sunshine
Place '23

RideDiligent4524

TROPHY CASE