Do you email a gallery or just walk in with your portfolio?
Ok, honest question because I keep going back and forth on this.
I've only ever sold at local fairs, but there's a small gallery downtown I'd love to show at someday. I emailed them a couple months ago with a few photos and never heard a thing back. Now I'm wondering if I should've just walked in with my portfolio instead, or if that's just annoying to them.
So which is it for you? Do you email first, or do you walk in? And did the one that worked actually feel like a fluke or did you plan it?
I'll go first: email, and so far my score is 0 for 1 😅
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vale, so: the silence is normal and it's not about your work. small galleries get buried and half of them don't even read the inbox properly. but here's the part people skip, they don't buy photos. they buy the object. my move now is email first but keep it stupid short, two lines, one piece, and ask if you can drop by when it's quiet. if they say nothing after two tries, I go in person anyway but on a tuesday morning with one actual piece rolled in a towel, not a folder of images. much harder to ignore something sitting on the counter. got my first small show that way after a lot of nothing emails. 0 for 1 is honestly the normal start, don't read it as a no on you.
The rolled piece in the towel is the whole thing, yeah. I brought a framed linocut into a place in town years ago, walked in off the street with it under my arm like I was delivering a wardrobe, and the woman behind the desk actually picked it up and turned it in the light before she'd even asked my name. You can't do that with a jpeg. Half the job with relief work is the bite of the cut and the way the ink sits, and a screen flattens every bit of it.
Only thing I'd add is mind the timing on the drop-in. Tuesday morning is grand, but check they're not hanging a show that week, because I did that once and got the polite version of "not now" and had to do the whole walk of shame back down the street with the thing under my arm. Two lines in the email and then the towel, that's the right order though. Good luck with it.
The wardrobe delivery got me 😅 but honestly that's the part that lands: she picked it up and turned it in the light. Nobody's doing that to a jpeg. My stuff is acrylic on canvas so it's not quite the same as the bite of a cut, but the brushwork and the thickness of the paint just die on a screen, and that's exactly what I'd want them to see.
Interesting timing note too. I'd have walked in cold on a Saturday morning assuming that was safest, so Tuesday makes sense, less foot traffic, nobody mid-install. Did she end up taking anything from you, or was it more of a nice chat and a no?
The rolled-up piece in a towel is the part I never would have thought of. I keep thinking in terms of sending them a link and hoping, but you're right, they can't see the surface or the texture in a photo, and that's half of why I paint the way I do.
Question though, what did you bring? Like your single best piece, or the one that best matches what they already hang? I have one I'm proud of but it's a big field scene and this gallery is all small stuff, so now I'm second-guessing which one to roll up.
And Tuesday morning, noted. I can make that work, my youngest is at school by 8:30. Thank you for this, genuinely. I was about to give up on them and you've got me thinking it's worth one more try.