Did you walk in or send the email first?
I walked in. Twice, actually. First time the person at the desk told me to send an email, which I did, and nothing came of it. Second time I came back with two small canvases under my arm and asked if the director had five minutes. He gave me twelve. That gallery ended up showing me for six years.
My husband still says that was insane and that I only got away with it because I am French and stubborn. Maybe. But I have never once gotten a reply from a cold email with a PDF attached, and I have gotten two shows from standing in a room.
So: did you walk in or send the email first? And if you walked in, what did you actually say at the desk? Because I am convinced the sentence matters more than the paintings in that first thirty seconds, and I want to know if I am the only one who thinks so.
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
I sent the email first, and I would do it again, but not the way most people do it. A PDF of twelve images tells a director nothing about whether you can hold a surface. What I have found works is a short letter, no more than a paragraph, with two or three images and a plain statement of what I actually do. The galleries that replied were the ones where I had clearly looked at their programme and could say why my work belonged in it.
The unannounced visit worked for you because you had two canvases under your arm and the person could see immediately that you were serious. That is the real content of the gesture. I suspect the French and stubborn part helped less than the work did.
Ah, but the letter you describe is a different animal from the cold PDF. One paragraph, three images, and you have actually looked at their programme. That is not a cold email anymore, that is a letter to someone whose taste you have taken seriously. Of course those got replies.
The thing I would push on: the canvases did the talking, not my stubbornness. A director can see in ten seconds whether the surface is alive. Words can lie about that, paint cannot. Maybe the real answer is that your letter has to do what two canvases did in the doorway, and that is much harder to write than to carry.