My first yes came from a dentist's waiting room. Where did yours come from?
Long story short: I had a dentist in the 6th who let me hang two small interiors in his waiting room, mostly because his wife felt sorry for me. A patient turned out to run a tiny space near Perrache and that is how I got my first real wall. No portfolio, no dossier, no letter. Just a stranger sitting in a chair with a numb mouth.
So I want to know where your first yes actually came from. Not the polished version for the interview. The real one, the odd one, the one that still embarrasses you a little.
Mine was a dentist. Tell me I'm not the only one who got in sideways.
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Mine came from a funeral, honey. My cousin passed and they asked me to make a quilt for the service, and a lady from the arts council was there that day. She kept looking at it the whole time. Two months later she called me about a show. I hadn't sent a soul a thing, never had a portfolio in my life, still don't really. Sometimes the door opens while you're just doing what you were already going to do anyway.
A quilt at a funeral, and she was looking at it instead of the coffin. That says more about the work than any portfolio ever could.
And I think you've put your finger on the thing I was really asking about. You weren't making it for anyone. That's why she looked. There's a quality that only shows up when nobody is being performed for, and people who run spaces can smell it from across a room. My dentist's wife felt sorry for me, so that part is pure pity. But the two paintings I hung in there, I made them for myself, years before, with no plan for them. C'est ça, the door.
I never had a real dossier either, for what it's worth. I had slides in a plastic sleeve. Sorry about your cousin.