How did you land your first gallery?

Mine was a fluke. Cold. I was doing fabrication for another sculptor and the gallery owner asked who did the welds on a piece he liked. That was it. No portfolio, no slideshow, no pitch. Thirty years later I still think about how different it would've gone if I'd walked in off the street with my own work.

How'd you get your first one? Walked in, referral, someone saw your stuff somewhere? Curious if anyone actually got a yes from a cold approach.

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Inês Costa·1mo

Mine came through someone I knew, but not in the way you'd think. A woman who bought a small piece at a craft market mentioned me to her friend who ran a tiny gallery across town. I never met the owner before she hung my work. I found out by walking in one day and seeing my own prints on her wall. Took a full minute to understand what I was looking at.

Funny how the fluke ones stick with you more than the intentional ones. I've had a few proper approaches since and none of them carry the same weight as that afternoon.

I don't know anyone who got a yes from walking in cold, honestly. The gallery world seems to run on these strange quiet currents. But I also think the flukes only happen because you were out there making things first.

Roman PetrakOP·1mo

That's a good story. Walking in and finding your own work already hanging, that's not something you'd ever plan for. Most of us spend years trying to get in the door and it happens sideways like that.

And you're right, the flukes stick. The intentional ones feel earned, the accidental ones feel like they were meant to happen. I've never figured out which one matters more.

I don't think I've ever met someone who got a yes cold either. Which says something about the business, I guess. But I'd still like to meet the one guy who made it work.

Inês Costa·1mo

Mine came through the sea, in a way. I'd been leaving prints to dry on the rocks one morning, pinned down with stones, and a man walking his dog stopped to look. Turned out he ran a small gallery in Matosinhos. He took my number and three months later asked if I'd show. I'd never sent him anything.

But I know what you mean about the cold approach. I've never done it. There's something about handing your work to a stranger that feels like undressing in daylight. I always thought it would have to happen sideways, and it did. I'm not sure I'd have the nerve to do it the direct way even now.

Roman PetrakOP·1mo

Prints on rocks. That's a better origin story than most. And the dog-walker ending it makes it stick.

I get the undressing bit. I've shown work for decades and there's still that moment before you pull the cloth off in the studio, wondering if it's garbage. Only got easier because I got older and stopped caring as much what strangers thought. Not entirely, but enough.

Sideways is how it happens more than people admit. The direct route, cold calls, portfolios in the mail, that's the version everyone thinks they have to do. But it's usually someone seeing something at the wrong moment, right place. Doesn't make it less earned though. The work still has to hold up when they come look.