First gallery: did you walk in with work or email first?
First real gallery I got into, I walked in. Cold, no appointment, two small pieces in the truck bed wrapped in a moving blanket. Owner was maybe 70, looked at them for ten minutes, asked what stone and how I cut it. That was the whole interview. Took me on a month later.
I know that doesn't work for everyone and half the galleries now want a PDF and a statement before they'll open the door. So I'm asking: how did you actually land your first one. Walked in, emailed, referral, got dragged in by somebody else. And was it the work that did it or the timing.
Tell me the real version, not the one you put on the website.
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Mine was a referral, but the referral was accidental. A gallerist I'd never met saw a room I built in a disused printing works, and the only reason she was in that building was to look at something else entirely. She came back twice before saying anything to me. That part I think matters more than walk-in or email: she needed to see the work twice with nobody watching, no blanket, no interview. The first gallery that took me properly, I never sent a PDF. Which is not advice, it just happened that way and I've watched the same doors stay shut for people with better documentation than I ever had.
The thing about your stone guy, he didn't ask for a statement. He asked how you cut it. That's a man deciding whether you know your own material, and no statement answers that question. Half the reason the PDF gates exist now is that fewer people behind the desks actually make anything, so they can only read about it. Not their fault exactly. Just means the work has to be undeniable in the room, because the paper will never carry it for you.