"The pear is stunning in its purity, its simplicity, its grain;the genius embedded in its wood transforms it from something lovely in itself, a chunk of walnut wood, into an exquisite object. We are, however, disturbed by shipping prices; despite that cost, we bought pears from several artists. But we are outraged about SPs--3-5x the cost of the artwork!We understand: beauty on the cheap is not vulgar;but do the gutter prices of the art vindicate these extraordinary SPs? Material artists- wood carvers, sempsters, clearly cannot live on the work of their hands.But how can such outrageous SPs be rationalized? Do extravagant SPs preserve the life of the artist? A day will come when the doors to Etsy's realm of hand-made wonders will open only to keys the 5%, the 3%, the 1%, who can afford $38 SPs for a $7 item."