Handed a gallery a folder of prints and a chancer's smile. What's the maddest thing you've done to get in the door?

Right, I'll go first because it's only fair.

Years back, before anyone knew my name, I walked into a place in town with a folder of linocuts under my arm and absolutely no appointment. No email. No plan. Just a fella with ink under his nails asking would whoever's in charge have five minutes. The woman at the desk looked at me like I'd walked in off a building site, which to be fair, I probably had.

She gave me the five minutes. I got a "leave the folder in, we'll be in touch." Never heard a word back. But I did learn something that day, that a closed door is only closed until you knock on it and look harmless enough.

So tell me. What's the maddest, cheekiest, most shameless thing you've ever done to get your work in front of someone? Sliding a print under a door, following a curator around a launch, sticking a business card in a coat pocket, I've heard it all and I want the rest.

And be honest now, did it actually work, or did you just get a lovely story out of it? 🙂

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Giulia Bruno·3w

The folder left behind is the part I keep thinking about. You handed over the actual work and then had to just... wait, with no idea what happened to it. That's a very particular kind of exposure, and I think it's the real subject of your story, more than the door.

I'm a printmaker too, so I know the folder problem. A print is a multiple, which means you can leave one behind and still have the edition. That sounds like it should make it easier. It doesn't. Every time I hand work over to someone I feel like I've left a piece of myself on a desk somewhere, and half the time it just sits there.

The knocking thing, I half agree. Boldness gets you the five minutes. But what gets you past the desk is usually something quieter, a person who saw the work and remembers it three weeks later. The five minutes is the easy part. Not sure the smiling version of me would have understood that.

Niall DohertyOP·3w

"a particular kind of exposure" is exactly the phrase for it, and you've put your finger on the bit I didn't even say out loud in the post. the knock was the easy part, I could do the knock all day. the folder sitting on some desk is the thing that kept me up.

and you're dead right that the multiple is no comfort at all. I still have the edition, sure, but it's not the edition I'm worried about, is it. it's that one, the specific one, wherever it landed. I've one from years ago I still picture face down under a pile of invoices somewhere in a back office. I've made peace with it. mostly.

what gets me now is I've started writing my name and number on the back in pencil, soft, small, and I can't decide if that's manners or neediness. probably both.

Lukas Brandt·3w

The no-appointment walk-in is a real tradition, at least here in Germany it was, and I understand the impulse. But the folder is what gets me. I never left originals or even prints behind in the early years. Nothing wrong with it, only that you hand the work over and then it sits in a stack somewhere with your name misspelled on the back, and nobody tells you anything. That not-knowing is worse than the no.

What I did instead was worse in a different way. I talked my way into a group show at a project space by claiming I knew a painter I had only seen once across a room. Genau, I lied, and then spent the two months before hanging avoiding him at every opening. It worked, which taught me nothing useful, which is the problem with these stories. The door opens once for a chancer. Then you need the work.

For what it's worth, the "we'll be in touch" that never comes is usually not a no about the work. It's that the person who took your folder left, or the gallery changed programme, or it simply got buried. Cold, but not personal.

Niall DohertyOP·3w

Ha, the painter you'd seen across a room once. That's a beautiful bit of neck, fair play. And you're right that it's worse in a different way, because a lie like that has a shelf life and you spend the whole run of the show waiting for the fella to walk in and go "who?" Did he ever turn up?

And yeah, the folder. That's the bit that stung and I only copped it after. I'd handed over the actual work, not a printout, not photos, the real pulled prints, and then sat at home for months picturing them going soft and curled in some stack under a radiator with "N. O' something" on the back. Nothing wrong with leaving a folder, mind, plenty of people do it and it works. But I think the difference is whether anyone's expecting it. A scheduled drop is a handshake. My one was a cold call with my best work in it and no receipt.

What I do now is worse again, if you want the truth. I bring the folder everywhere, every market, every opening, and I've stopped caring whether it's the right room. Half the time nothing comes of it. But now and then a fella at a bar goes "have you that with you?" and the whole thing turns over. Slower, but I get to keep the prints 🙂