How did you land your first gallery? Mine was a tailor shop that had one empty wall.
I'll go first since it's only fair.
There's a tailoring shop near my old neighbourhood in Malleshwarigalli side, the owner had this long blank wall above the folding table and he was tired of looking at it. I used to sketch outside his shop most mornings, we'd got friendly, and one day he just asked if I wanted to hang some of the old house paintings there. Not a gallery, not a sale, just a wall. But it was the first time anyone asked, and I said yes before he finished the sentence.
Two of them are still there. He refuses to take them down even though the wall's due for repainting.
So, how did yours happen? The proper way, the accidental way, the mortifying way, all welcome. Was it a cold email, a friend of a friend, an open call you nearly didn't send, a walk-in that went badly or surprisingly well? I want to know the actual story, not the advice version.
And tell me the truth about the first one. Did you sell anything, or did you just stand there beaming at your own frames?
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This is such a good way to start the thread, honestly. A tailor shop wall might be better than a gallery in one way: nobody was watching, so you could just find out what it felt like to be seen. I don't have a proper gallery story at all, my first "yes" was a small café in Kraków that let me lean three pastel boards against the windowsill for a month. One sold. I cried a bit in the tram after, which is embarrassing to admit.
What strikes me in yours is that the two paintings are still up. That says more than a sale would. Did you keep painting the old houses after, or did that wall close something for you?
The tram crying is not embarrassing, that is exactly the correct response. Kraków cafés and pastel boards sounds like a much better origin story than a tailor, honestly. Did the one that sold go to someone who was sitting there drinking coffee, or did the owner buy it? I always wonder about that.
And no, the wall didn't close anything. If anything it opened it up. I kept painting the old houses, more of them, faster, because suddenly I had somewhere to put them and that made me braver about knocking on doors. The tailor's wall was like a rehearsal. Nobody important was watching so I could be bad at it in peace.
Which is why I asked the question in the first place, honestly. Everyone waits for the gallery and the gallery is often the last thing that happens, not the first.