Sold a piece at a group show because I didn't post about it
Small thing that surprised me. I had a piece in a group show last month, the torn paper one with the burned edges, and I didn't post about it once. Not out of principle, I just forgot and then it felt weird to announce it late.
The person who bought it told me she'd seen it on the gallery's page, walked in on a Tuesday afternoon when nobody was there, and stood in front of it for a while. She said if she'd seen me posting about it every week she probably wouldn't have gone.
I don't know what to do with that. I've spent years telling myself that if I don't put the work in front of people constantly they'll forget I exist, and it's not like posting has never worked. It's just that the sale came from the one week I wasn't performing it.
Not making a rule out of it. I'll probably be back to posting badly-lit studio corners by Thursday like everyone else.
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
I think what she is describing is quieter than a marketing lesson. She came upon the work without you standing beside it explaining it, and that is a different kind of encounter. There is a reason the natural history plates that endure were made to be studied rather than announced.
I would not take it as a rule against posting, though. I suspect she would have gone anyway if the work had held her on its own, and the posting she resented was the relentless kind, not the simple fact of it. One quiet notice when a show opens is not the same as a weekly drumbeat. You are allowed to say the work exists.
The part worth keeping is that she stood in front of it for a while. That is the whole thing, really.
"studied rather than announced" is going to sit with me. that's exactly the thing I couldn't name, the standing-beside-it part.
and yeah, the quiet notice vs the drumbeat distinction is probably the honest version. I keep swinging between "never post again" and "post constantly out of guilt" and neither of those is a position, it's just mood.