If I ever ship a piece of art, I always get the same question from the post office, “Would you like insurance with that?” The idea is that if the postal service loses my work, or it gets damaged, or it just doesn’t make it to it’s destination, they’ll pay me some money for my loss. But when it comes to an original piece of art, how much is it worth?
The easy answer to a question like this would be to say, “Well, if I sold this piece on the market today, I’d ask for X dollars, so I’ll guess I’ll insure it for that much.” But, monetary value (or exchange value), is just one domain of value and, to be honest, it’s not one I really ascribe to a piece of paper that contains my time, accumulated skill as an illustrator, and, let’s be honest, my heart.
I always refuse insurance because when something I care about that much is lost, money doesn’t make it better. Sure, I can buy enough materials to replace the loss in a physical material sense, but money can’t buy the time, place, and emotion that was present when I was making the work – art just doesn’t work like that.