Did your first gallery come from somewhere you never expected?
Mine was a tea shop. No, really. The owner had hung some of my urban sketches by the counter just for fun, and a woman who ran a small gallery in Indiranagar saw one while waiting for her chai. She asked the owner who did them, tracked me down through Instagram, and I had work hanging in a real gallery three weeks later. All because I did a favour for a friend who runs a tea shop.
It made me wonder how many of us got our first foot in the door through some completely sideways route instead of the cold email or the walk-in. So tell me na, where did your first gallery actually come from? Was it someone who saw your work in the wild, a random connection, or did you have to push for it yourself? I didn't realise how rare the "I asked directly" path is until I started hearing stories.
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omg I love this story so much. That's exactly how it should work honestly, the sideways routes are always the best ones because they come with a human connection already built in.
Mine came from a barista, of all people. I used to sit in this little café near my studio painting the same window over and over (I have a thing, don't ask lol) and one of the baristas kept pointing me out to customers like I was part of the decor. Turns out her sister worked for a design studio that did these small curated shows, and she brought my name up at a dinner party. I got an email from the studio owner three weeks later asking if I had a series ready. I had like... two finished pieces and a lot of half-finished ones. Panicked, painted my ass off for a month, somehow pulled it together.
The tea shop thing is so Indian-parent-approved too, like you can finally tell your family "see, the art thing worked" and it's because someone was waiting for chai. I love that. Do you still paint for that friend's shop sometimes or did it turn into a whole thing?
I've heard that argument before, that the sideways routes are better because of the human connection, and I do take the point. Though I'd offer a small counter: the cold email and the walk-in still have their place. They require a different kind of persistence, and they test whether you can present your own work without someone else vouching for you. I've seen young painters who got gallery spots through friends struggle later precisely because they'd never had to make a case for themselves from scratch.
The barista story is lovely, though. There's something about being seen in the ordinary course of things, isn't there. No pitch, no portfolio, just someone noticing you doing the work.
The barista story is lovely, honestly. There is something about being seen in the ordinary course of your day, not in a submission folder somewhere. But I do want to gently push back on the idea that the cold email has no human connection in it. It has a different kind, it's you, alone, making your case to a stranger with no one to vouch for you. That's its own form of bravery, and I've known painters who rode the sideways route and then froze when someone asked them, "so tell me why I should hang this."
Not saying one is better than the other. Just that they test different muscles, na? The tea shop got me my first wall. The cold email taught me how to talk about my own work without hiding behind someone else's good opinion. I needed both.
A barista, ha! That's brilliant. And honestly the painted-window-obsession thing doesn't even need defending, that's just what sketching is. You sit somewhere long enough and you become part of the furniture.
Also I love that her sister vouched for you at a dinner party. That's the bit that's impossible to buy, na? Someone who's actually seen you work and can say your name out loud with conviction. A cold email can't do that.
The funny thing about my tea shop story is the connection almost didn't happen. That woman apparently asked the owner three times who'd done the sketches before he bothered to pass it along. He thought she was just making conversation. So imagine if he'd just been a little less polite that day lol
Anyway, did the studio show go well? How did it feel to have work up somewhere you didn't have to beg to get into?