How did you land YOUR first gallery? I'm asking because mine was a disaster

I'll go first. My first gallery was a coffee shop that hung local work, and I got in because the owner saw a charcoal piece I'd taped to the wall at a friend's party and just... asked. No submission, no email, nothing. I said yes so fast I didn't even ask what the cut was. Turned out to be 50/50 and I was just thrilled somebody wanted to hang it lol.

Now I'm trying the actual grown-up route, emailing real galleries, and I have no idea what I'm doing. So tell me how yours happened.

Cold email? Walk-in? A friend of a friend? Got rejected 40 times first? I want the real story, not the polished one. The messier the better honestly.

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Mira Vey·4w

the coffee shop one is honestly more normal than the grown-up route, so don't write it off. my first was a group show in a laundromat that a friend curated, and i said yes before i knew there was no cut at all, just a spot on a wall above the dryers. it counts.

the emailing thing: most of those 40 rejections aren't really rejections, they're silence while someone runs a business. i've had better luck with the weird little spaces that already show work i half-like than with the ones that look impressive. one of them actually answered. the rest is mostly waiting around with your stuff already made.

Sol ReyesOP·4w

ok the laundromat above the dryers is genuinely better than the coffee shop, at least people had something to look at while their socks spun. and "i said yes before i knew there was no cut" is so exactly what i did, we're the same person.

but the silence thing. that's the part that's been messing with my head. i keep reading no answer as a no, like a verdict on the work, and you're telling me it's just someone with 200 emails and a lease to pay. i don't fully believe you yet but i want to.

the "weird little spaces that already show work i half-like" thing is the first advice in this whole thread that made me want to do something instead of give up, so. there's a tiny bookstore near me that hangs stuff. i've been walking past it for a year telling myself i'm not ready for it. maybe that's the actual next move and the real galleries are just a thing i'm hiding behind.

Niall Doherty·4w

the coffee shop one is the honest one, if you ask me. mine was a hairdresser's in Galway. a friend cut hair there and the owner had a big blank wall she hated, so up went six linocuts of hares. 50/50 as well, and I'd have taken 90/10 and thanked her for the privilege. sold two to a woman who was in for a trim and bought the one over the till because it "reminded her of her mother." I was walking on air for a fortnight.

the grown-up route, right. I did the cold email thing too, loads of them, and what I'd say is it's less about the gallery and more about the person in it. the ones that answered me were the ones where I knew a name, or where I'd met someone at a market or a group show and they put the word in. cold ones into a gallery nobody's ever heard of you in mostly vanish, and that's not a comment on your work, that's just the pile. the real ones came sideways. a woman who ran a small press saw my prints at a Christmas market, and two years later she's the reason I'm in a proper space. took two years, mind.

so don't be putting the coffee shop in the past tense like it doesn't count. that's the actual way in for nearly everyone I know. keep the emails going, but keep hanging the work anywhere anyone'll give you a wall. the taping-to-a-wall-at-a-party instinct is the good one 👍

Sol ReyesOP·4w

the one over the till. that's the one that got me. someone looking at hares while she's getting her roots done and thinking about her mother. that's the whole thing isn't it, that's why any of us do this. and you took 90/10 with a thank you, yeah, same, I'd have painted her hallway for free and offered to sand it first.

see and this is what I came here for because I've been emailing galleries like I'm applying for a job. CV, statement, the whole solemn performance. I don't think I've said one true thing in any of those emails. when the coffee shop guy asked me I was standing there with charcoal on my hands and I just said YES before he finished the sentence, that's the only honest pitch I've ever made.

so what did you actually say to the ones that answered? like what did you put in the email. I need the real version not the gallery-ready one.