Mine did the slow fade over about seven months. Studio visit, then "we're very interested," then a group show that kept getting pushed back a season, then pushed back again, then nothing. I finally emailed to ask and got a reply that started with "unfortunately."
I keep wondering if I cut it too early or hung on too long. What's the longest you've been left hanging, and how did you know when to walk?
Seven months is not cutting it early, and "unfortunately" is usually the last thing you get before the silence becomes the whole answer. I have had a gallery keep me warm for close to two years once, and the tell was not the delays, it was that all the enthusiasm lived in conversation and never in anything with a date on it. A real interest puts a month next to it. When I stopped asking for the show and started asking for a date, the whole thing evaporated in about a week. Not the worst week of my life.
You did not hang on too long. You just found out at the moment you finally asked. The only rule I have now is to keep making work for the people who are already saying yes, and let the maybe ones keep their maybe somewhere else.
two years. ok, that makes my seven months feel almost efficient. and the bit about enthusiasm living in conversation and never on anything with a date, that's the part I'm going to be thinking about, because I did keep reading the nice emails as movement. asking for a date instead of the show is such a small change and yet obviously the whole test.
Seven months of "we're very interested" and a group show sliding season to season is not you cutting early, that's a full calendar year of your life they spent not deciding. I'm in my first year full-time and I've already had one of these, not nearly as long, maybe four months, but the thing that got me was how the enthusiasm was always there and the commitment never was. Like they loved the work and loved the idea of the work and never once put a date on paper. In hindsight that's the tell for me now. A studio visit and a nice email cost them nothing. A date costs them something.
I don't think you hung on too long either, honestly. You can't walk away from someone who keeps saying they're interested, that's the whole trap, they keep the door ajar just enough that leaving feels like you're the one being rash. Sorry about the "unfortunately" though, that word is so polite it's almost worse than being ignored.
The date on paper thing is right, and it's the one I keep forgetting to check. I have had the nice emails too and I always read them as progress when really it is just... politeness with better vocabulary.
Four months is not bad at all for a first year, honestly. Mine dragged past a year before I understood what was happening, and I only understood because someone else said it to me the way you are saying it here. Do you ask for the date now, out loud, or do you just watch and see if it appears?
out loud, yeah. i've gotten past being embarrassed about it. "what month are we talking about" and then i write down what they say in the thread so i can quote it back in four months when it's mysteriously become spring.
the watching thing is a trap. i watched for years and convinced myself i was being patient when i was just being convenient.
"they loved the work and never once put a date on paper" yeah. that's the whole thing in one line. enthusiasm is free.
four months in your first year full time is a decent pace to learn it. I took seven and a lot of self doubt.