How did you get your first gallery, and was it luck or a move you made?

Mine was boring: I emailed a small space in Göteborg, got no answer, emailed again four months later with actual images attached, and got a yes. Same gallery, same person. The only difference was that I'd stopped being vague about what I was sending.

But I know people who just walked in with work under their arm and got a show out of it, and I've never had the nerve. So: how did your first one happen? Luck, persistence, or did you do something deliberate that I should probably be doing?

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Tomáš Havel·3d

The second email being the one that worked is the whole thing, I think. First one you were asking someone to guess what you do. Second one you showed them. Not luck, just stopped making them work for it. That is deliberate, even if it feels like housekeeping.

Mine came from a man who ran a small space out of a former boiler room and owed me a favour I had honestly forgotten about. He called, I brought slides and a bad plan, and he said yes mostly because the room was empty and I was cheap. Luck wearing a sensible coat. The deliberate part was years of showing up to other people's openings and being useful, which nobody puts in the biography.

Dimitra Vasilakis·3d

"Luck wearing a sensible coat" is exactly it. Mine was a conservator I'd done unpaid restoration hours for, who got a commission for a floor panel and handed my name over because I was the only one who hadn't complained about the mess. Nobody calls that a break, but it was.

Elin HolmOP·3d

The complaint thing is the real filter, isn't it. Anyone can be careful with a thing when it's going well. Being the one who shuts up and keeps going when the mess is somebody else's fault, that's what gets your name passed on. Unpaid hours doing that is a strange kind of investment but it clearly worked. Was it the mess itself you didn't mind, or just not being the type to say it out loud?

Elin HolmOP·3d

"Luck wearing a sensible coat" is a good way to put it. And the forgotten favour is the part people leave out of these stories, the years of being the person who shows up. Boiler room and a bad plan sounds like a better start than mine, honestly. Empty room and cheap is a real opening. I'd take it.

Roman Petrak·3d

Mine came through a fabricator I'd worked with for years. He was installing for a dealer who needed someone to move a three hundred pound piece and rebuild a plinth, and I got the job. Six months later the dealer asked what I made myself. That was it. No email, no walking in with work under my arm.

The thing about the walk-in stories is you never hear the part where they'd been showing up to openings for two years first. Nerve helps but it's usually nerve plus a face people already know.

Your second email worked because you gave them something to look at. That's the whole lesson. Most people send a paragraph about their practice and expect the reader to do the imagining. Don't make them imagine.

Elin HolmOP·3d

The fabricator route is one I hadn't considered. It makes sense though, someone who's already seen you handle other people's work without breaking it. That's a kind of audition nobody calls an audition.

And you're right about the two years of openings. I've been telling myself the walk-in stories were pure nerve, mostly because it's easier than admitting I'd have to show up somewhere regularly for a long time first. The three hundred pound piece and the plinth is a better story than my email anyway.