The older I get the more I think I've done this all wrong. When I was young and hungry I would walk into a gallery in Lyon with paintings under my arm, no appointment, nothing. Half the time nobody even looked at them. The other half I got a card and a promise that went nowhere.

These days I send an email with three or four images, clean and simple, and I wait. It feels more respectful. But I also wonder if the walk-in shows something the email can't, audacity, nerve, that you actually exist in a body and your work has weight to it.

I landed my first real gallery because the owner saw me set up painting the market on a Tuesday morning. Not the work, the process. She came over.

So what do you do? Knock on the door with a portfolio, or fire off the email and hope? And has either actually worked for you, or is it all luck either way?