gallery finally said yes and then went totally quiet on me. is that normal or did I screw something up?

Ok so I need someone to tell me I'm not being insane here.

I got my first real gallery yes back in the spring (still cannot believe I'm typing that, I cried in the parking lot haha) and it was the best day. Like genuinely. Then... nothing. Emails take two weeks to get an answer, the show date keeps sliding, and last time I asked a totally normal logistics question I got a one-line reply that felt like it was typed by someone already walking away.

And here's my actual question because I keep going back and forth on it: how long do you wait before you check in again, and how many times is too many before you're "the annoying artist"? I've landed on roughly every two weeks and one follow-up max, but I have literally no idea if that's pushy or way too passive. My partner says I'm being patient, I say I'm being a doormat, we've had this fight twice.

Also part of me wonders if the quiet is just... how galleries are? Like a slow-cooking thing where no news is fine news? Or is silence the polite version of "we changed our minds"? Tell me your actual follow-up rules, and if you've ever had a gallery go dark on you, what happened. Did it come back around or was that the end?

genuinely asking because I've rewritten the same check-in email four times and I need to just send the thing 🙏

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Niall Doherty·19h

Ah here, you're not being insane, and you didn't screw anything up. The quiet after a yes is weirdly worse than the no, because the no lets you get on with your life. But a gallery running silent for months is, unfortunately, just how a lot of them operate. The person who loved your work and the person who answers the emails are usually not the same human, and the second one is drowning.

I had a version of this a few years back. Small gallery, great meeting, handshake, "we'll be in touch about dates." Didn't hear a thing for something like four months. I'd nearly written it off as a polite brush. Then out of nowhere a date, and it went ahead grand. Turns out the whole thing had just been sitting in a folder on someone's desk the entire time, nothing to do with me at all.

So on your actual question: I'd give it a fortnight, then one short, friendly, zero-guilt email. Something like "just keeping this on the radar, happy to work around whatever suits you, here's the two things I need at some point." Keep it to a few lines. Then wait again. Two or three gentle nudges over a few months is not too many. What tips it into too many is asking the same question repeatedly, or letting the frustration leak into the tone. Never the tone.

The one-line reply that felt like it was typed by someone walking away? That's just how they type. Don't read a whole story into it. If the date keeps sliding with no new date offered at all, that's your moment to ask plainly, once, "is this still going ahead, and roughly when." That's a fair question, not a needy one. You got the yes for a reason. Keep it on the radar and let them come back to you.

Mira Vey·18h

the no lets you get on with your life. yeah. got a yes in february once, spent three months mentally hanging work that didn't exist yet, then the whole thing dissolved because the director left. nobody even told me, I found out from their instagram.

anyway you're right that the person who loves the work and the person who answers the email are two different people. I'd add one thing though, the silence isn't always neutral. sometimes it's just drowning, sometimes it's a soft no they don't want to say out loud. hard to tell from outside, which is the worst part.

Dani OkaforOP·18h

ok the "found out from their instagram" part made me actually put my phone down for a second. that's brutal and honestly exactly the thing I'm scared of, like I keep checking their page for any sign of life and I hate that I've become that person haha.

and yeah, "drowning vs soft no" is the part that's eating me. because a soft no I could take, I've got the folder too, but with the soft no you at least know what you're looking at. this in-between thing means every two weeks I have to decide all over again whether I'm being patient or being an idiot. I've got a draft email sitting there right now that I keep rewriting, which is probably its own answer about how well I'm handling this.

three months of hanging imaginary work though. that's the real toll nobody talks about, you're just doing free labor for a show that might not exist. did you ever get the work into an actual room after that or did it just end up back in the flat files?

Dani OkaforOP·18h

"the no lets you get on with your life" is going to live in my head rent free, I've got a whole folder of nos at this point and honestly every one of them was easier than this, at least with a no you know where you stand and you can go be sad about it for a day and then paint.

the handshake and then four months of nothing is exactly what I'm scared of. can I ask what happened in the end, did they ever actually come back to you or did you just have to quietly let it go? because I genuinely do not know when it stops being "they're busy" and starts being "this is dead and I'm the only one who doesn't know yet" haha. I keep drafting check in emails and then deleting them because I don't want to be the annoying one but also... four months. that's not a check in, that's a wellness check at that point.

Inês Costa·19h

The silence after a yes is its own particular kind of hard, worse than the no in some ways because you already let yourself believe it.

From my own experience, and I show only modestly, this is very normal and usually not about you. Galleries run on their own slow clock, one person doing five jobs, dates moving because a bigger show slipped. The one-line reply reads cold but it is often just someone answering from a phone between other things. I have learned not to read tone into brevity, though I still do it every time, so.

That said, normal and acceptable are not the same. I would wait two to three weeks between check-ins, keep it short and useful, one question at a time. If it goes quiet past a couple of months with a confirmed date still sliding, that is a real thing to name gently, not apologize for. A yes that never gets a date is not yet a yes. Do not let them hold your work and your spring in limbo forever.

You did not screw anything up. Asking for logistics is not neediness. But do keep making your own work in the meantime, so the waiting does not become the whole story.

Dani OkaforOP·19h

"worse than the no" is exactly it and nobody warned me about that part. the no I could have handled, I've got a whole folder of nos at this point. but the yes made me start imagining the opening, like I caught myself picking out what I'd wear. and then the silence just sits there under all of it.

"I still do it every time, so" made me laugh, thank you for that. I've been rereading a one-line email like it's a poem with hidden meaning. it was "sounds good, will circle back." that's it. that's the email I've been dissecting for six days.

ok and you stopped right at the two weeks thing which is where I actually needed you, so I'm going to be annoying and ask: two weeks and then what? like do you send the nudge as a fresh subject line or reply in the old thread, and do you keep it short or do you give them an out ("totally understand if timing changed")? because I keep drafting and it either reads desperate or passive aggressive and I can't find the middle. I know it's just an email but I'm new enough at this that I genuinely don't know the etiquette.