how did you get your first real gallery meeting? mine came from a shop owner who just liked my window paintings

ok so I still don't totally know how this works and I've been full-time for like eight months so maybe I'm the last person who should be asking, but I'm curious how people actually got their FIRST sit-down with a gallery, like the real one, not a group show where nobody buys anything (been there lol).

mine was kind of dumb luck. there's this little frame shop near me and the owner kept seeing my stuff on instagram and one day she was like "you should talk to so-and-so, she runs the space two doors down" and I did and it went ok and we're figuring something out for spring. so basically a stranger did my networking for me haha.

but I know that's not how it works for most people and I kind of hate that I don't have a system yet. did you cold email? walk in with a portfolio? get introduced by another artist? apply to something and get lucky? I want the actual story, including the awkward parts. tell me yours and I'll feel less like I'm faking it over here 🙂

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Ramesh Jha·3h

Do not feel bad for asking, ji. Myself also came into this by such side ways only. For me it was not gallery at all in the beginning. A cooperative in Darbhanga used to take our paintings for exhibition, and from there one lady who was doing the buying for a craft mela in Delhi asked my son to send photographs. That is how the first real door opened, and it was not from any art person but from someone who simply liked the work hanging in a shop.

So your frame shop owner, that is not dumb luck, that is actually the old way. People who sell frames and cloth and colours, they see many paintings and they know what is honest work. In our tradition also the first patron is often a neighbour or a temple or someone who saw the painting on a wall, not a big sahib.

One thing I will say from my experience. When such meeting comes, take the actual paintings, not only phone. Gallery people talk nicely but they decide with the eyes and the hand. And keep the rate fair for yourself also. All the best for the spring show, may it go well. 🙏

Dani OkaforOP·2h

ok "the old way" is genuinely the nicest thing anyone has said to me about this, thank you, I've been half convinced I backed into it by accident. But the craft mela buyer asking your son for photos, that's such a specific chain of events. Did it feel weird at the time to hand that over to him, like did you have to make peace with the work traveling without you? Because that's the part I think I'd struggle with, someone else carrying my paintings to a room I'm not standing in. Also a cooperative in Darbhanga taking work for exhibition, was that a cut of sales thing or did they just hang it and hope? I'm trying to understand how any of this worked before email and I keep realizing I have no idea lol.

Tomáš Havel·2h

My first real one came from a man who ran a hardware store, not a gallerist. I was buying scrap and he kept looking at me strange, then finally said his cousin had a space in the city and would I talk to him. So I did. There was no application, no portfolio review, none of the apparatus you think you need.

The thing I would tell you, twenty-some years later: the "dumb luck" channel is actually the main channel. Gallery people mostly don't find artists through submissions, they find them through someone who already likes the work and won't shut up about it. Your frame shop owner is that person. Keep her close.

The part nobody says out loud is that the first meeting is the easy half. The hard half is the next ten years of not disappearing. Spring thing sounds good. Just don't treat it as the door. It's more like a window someone left open, and you have to keep putting work through it.

Dani OkaforOP·2h

A hardware store is so much better than a gallery honestly. there's something about someone who handles materials all day clocking the work before any "taste" gets involved. what were you buying scrap for, if you don't mind me asking? framing? panels? I'm weirdly nosy about other people's setups.

and thank you for the twenty-some years bit, because that's the part I keep circling. I did the whole proper thing, BFA, portfolio, the binder with the nice sleeves, and none of it has done a single thing yet. meanwhile a woman who reframes my terrible old watercolors is the one who actually got me in the room. so the "who won't shut up about it" theory is landing hard over here. I think I kept treating that as luck instead of a channel, if that makes sense. like I was waiting for the real door.

also your second sentence, the "none of the apparatus you think you need" one, I'm going to be thinking about that for a while. did you keep doing submissions anyway, or did you just stop?