First gallery asked to see my work, so I emailed them 40 photos and heard nothing for 3 weeks. Do you email first or just walk in?

Alright. So the way I got my first show was basically an accident. A guy saw one of my charcoal pieces sitting in the back of my truck outside a coffee shop, asked if it was for sale, turned out he knew a gallery owner. That is the entire story. Zero strategy, pure dumb luck, and I still feel weirdly guilty about it like I skipped a line.

So now I'm trying to do it the actual way, on purpose, and I have no idea what I'm doing. There's a space near me I really want to show in. I sent an email with like 40 images attached (was that too many? probably too many) and I've heard NOTHING for three weeks. Meanwhile a friend keeps telling me to just walk in with a piece under my arm and ask to talk to someone, which sounds insane to me but also kind of right?

So tell me how you actually do it. Email with a link first? Walk in cold? Instagram DM? Show up to openings and wait for someone to talk to you? And how long do you wait before you follow up, because I'm at the point where I'm refreshing my sent folder like a lunatic.

Bonus points if you tell me the one thing you did that actually worked, vs the thing everyone tells you to do that did nothing.

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Dani Okafor·3w

forty images is the thing I'd go back and change, and I say that as someone who did basically the same thing last spring lol. I sent a gallery my entire portfolio, like 30 files, and got silence, and then a painter I know was like "they want to see 8 to 12, and a link, not attachments, so they can actually look without downloading a zip." felt so obvious after. my guess is you didn't get rejected, you just got filed under "later," which honestly hurts worse.

the truck story is so good though, don't feel guilty about it. half the shows I know of started like that, someone's cousin, someone's dentist. the email route is just a slower version of the same thing, a person has to like it. also do NOT walk in cold, at least email the gallery first and ask what their submission window is, most of them hate a drop-in, and you'd rather be the polite email than the person who showed up with a portfolio on a Tuesday.

did you send a link to a site or just the images? and what's the work? charcoal, or are you mixing? asking because 40 charcoal pieces on a screen is brutal, they all go flat, and that might be part of it too.

Kasia Nowak·3w

"Filed under later" is the phrase I'm going to be haunted by now, thank you for that. But I think you're right, and I wonder if the attachments thing is even the bigger half of it. I sent a gallery a fat email once with everything in it and the reply, months later, was basically "we couldn't open it on the phone." They were reading it standing in the gallery. So a link is not just tidier, it's the only way someone actually sees the work at all.

Eight to twelve still feels impossibly few to me though. How do you even choose. Every time I try to cut down I end up keeping the ones I'm most tired of looking at, which is the opposite of the point.

Sol ReyesOP·3w

"we couldn't open it on the phone" is the funniest and most devastating thing I've read all week. they were standing in the gallery looking at their phone like, nope. so all that time I spent agonizing over the 40th image and the email was dead on arrival anyway. a link. a single link. I'm going to tattoo it somewhere.

and yeah, the cut is the whole problem. every time I try I keep the ones I'm most tired of because I've been staring at them longest so they feel like "real" work, and then I drop the one that actually has the pulse in it because it still embarrasses me. Which is backwards, right? the embarrassing one is usually the good one. I think I'm choosing with the wrong organ. I don't know what the rule is, I just know I pick wrong when I'm scared, and I'm always scared right before I send it.

Sol ReyesOP·3w

"filed under later, which honestly hurts worse" OUCH. yeah. that's the exact feeling. sitting here refreshing an inbox for a "no" that's never coming.

and the 8 to 12 + a link thing is so obvious in hindsight it's embarrassing. i sent 40 ATTACHMENTS. four zero. i basically made them do homework. no wonder it went quiet. i picked my best six last night and cut the rest and honestly it hurt to cut some of them, but the six that are left look like a person made them instead of like a folder i dumped on somebody.

the truck thing i'm keeping. everyone keeps telling me the accidental ones are the normal ones and i think i needed to hear it more than once, so thank you for that

Niall Doherty·3w

Forty images is the tell there, and sure I say it with love because I did the exact same thing starting out. Sent a gallery the whole lot once, every hare and heron I'd ever pulled, thinking more was more convincing. Heard nothing for a month, then got a two line reply that basically said "pick your best six and come in." Turns out they're not assessing your work at that stage, they're assessing whether you know what your work is. Forty photos says you don't yet, or that you're hoping one of them lands.

The other thing is the email itself. Galleries get buried. I'd not sit waiting on a reply that may never come, I'd walk in. Not with a portfolio under the arm making a production of it, just go in, look at the show, chat to whoever's on the desk, ask when they take submissions. Put a face on it. Half the business is just being a real person they've met rather than a name in an inbox.

And don't feel guilty about the truck story. Every show I ever got came sideways like that. The trick is you keep doing the sideways things and eventually it stops being luck.

Sol ReyesOP·3w

Ok "pick your best six and come in" is brutal and also the most useful sentence I've read all week. The hare and heron thing killed me because that is EXACTLY it, I sent the whole drawer. Every face, every study, the half-finished ones, like if I threw enough at them one would stick.

The part about them assessing whether you know what your work is, not whether the work is good. God. That lands hard. Because hand on heart I don't know if I could pick six. Ask me on a Monday and I'd show you one set, ask me Tuesday and I'd deny I ever made them. Does that get easier or is that just permanent lol.

Anyway the two line reply beats silence. Silence is the thing that eats me. I'd rather someone told me to get lost than leave me refreshing an inbox at 2am.