Whenever I hear someone ask this question—at an opening, in a gallery, or during a studio visit—I cringe. I know it is the last question most artists want to hear. It suggests that the viewer is not engaged with the ideas behind the work or its visual qualities, but has already moved on to calculating its value. If an artwork took months or years to complete, perhaps it is worth the price—even though the price may not have been mentioned. If the artist made it in a morning, then surely it must be worth less. But consider an artist working in watercolor. Think of the mountains of discarded paper that may have preceded the one painting you see. It may look wasteful, but sometimes that is what it takes.

The creation of an artwork, like any creative endeavor, includes all the years leading up to the moment of its completion: the years of study, the trials and errors, the abandoned works, and entire bodies of work discarded before the artist begins again.

The creative process does not follow a single, linear path. Many attempts never result in a finished work. When you encounter an artwork in a studio or gallery, the time required to make that particular object is not what matters. The work may be an action, an experience, a set of instructions—or the concept itself. An artwork may be judged by many criteria.

Time is not one of them.