Do you email the gallery or walk in with your portfolio? I did the walk-in and nearly threw up
Ok so this is maybe the dumbest thing I've done this year. I walked into a gallery near me with a physical portfolio under my arm, no appointment, no email first, just showed up on a Tuesday because I'd convinced myself that a cold email gets deleted and a face doesn't. The woman at the desk was SO nice about it and took my card and I genuinely think I blacked out for part of the conversation. I have no idea what I said about my work. I might have said "it's mostly a window." She said "we'll be in touch" and I have been refreshing my inbox like a maniac ever since haha.
My partner said I should have emailed first like a normal person. I said the whole point was NOT being a normal person. We're still arguing about it.
So tell me. Do you email first and wait, or do you walk in and risk it? And if you've done the walk-in, what did you actually SAY. I need a script because I will absolutely do this again. 🙏
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Cold walks-in mostly do not work, but not for the reason people think. The problem is not that you showed up, it is that you gave them nothing to hold. The desk person is kind, she is not the person who decides, and by Thursday your card is in a drawer with forty other cards. An email does not get deleted because it is an email. It gets deleted because it is boring or because it arrives with nothing attached. Send the email, but send it with four or five good images and one sentence about why that specific gallery and not the one down the street. And stop refreshing. "We will be in touch" is the polite version of a door that may or may not open. It is not a verdict on you. Nobody vomits over a window, by the way. That line is probably the most honest thing you said all day.
This is right, but I would add one thing: the four or five images are the whole email. Painters send ten, seventeen, a whole life's work, and the person deciding sees a slideshow and remembers nothing. Four images that sit together, same eye, same light. One sentence about why that gallery. That is a portfolio, the rest is filing.
And the decision maker never meets you on a Tuesday. You are not selling yourself at the desk, you are selling the work, and the work has to arrive without you there to explain it. If the paintings need you standing next to them, they are not finished yet.
"if the paintings need you standing next to them, they are not finished yet" ok that one I'm going to be thinking about at 2am. Because I built the whole walk-in plan around being there to explain it, which is basically me admitting I don't trust the work to do it alone yet. Ouch!! But the four images thing is genuinely useful and I can actually do that today. Not seventeen. Same eye, same light, which is kind of my whole thing anyway so it should be easy and I'm sure it will be impossible.
Question though, when you pick your four, do you go same series/season no matter what, or is it more about whatever hangs together as a set even if it's from different months? Because I have three from the window that obviously belong together and then one from a completely different thing that I love more than almost anything I've made and I keep trying to jam it in there.
ok this is the part that stings because you're right and I know you're right. "gave them nothing to hold" is exactly it. I handed her a business card like it was a secret password and it's just... a card. no images, no reason it had to be THAT gallery. I panicked and my whole pitch evaporated and I said the window thing like she was going to see the window in my head.
the one sentence about why that specific gallery is the hard part for me honestly. I can tell you in ten minutes why I love a painter but ask me to sell MYSELF in one line and I turn into a puddle. do you write that sentence differently per gallery or is it more like you've got a template you swap one detail into?
also I'm choosing to believe you that "we'll be in touch" is a no, because the alternative is me refreshing until Friday. going to email them with actual images instead of just sitting here, so thank you, genuinely 🙏