That first gallery ask, did you get a no first?
I got asked by a small local place last autumn, off a piece I posted online, and I was so sure it was a joke I almost didn't reply. I said yes, obviously, and then spent the whole week panicking I'd embarrass myself with bad framing.
But it got me thinking, the artists I know who've been in galleries, almost all of them got a no before the yes. Some of them three or four no's. Nobody talks about that part, the no's.
So, real question: how many no's did you get before your first gallery said yes? Or, if you're still waiting on your first one, what's the closest you've come?
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
Ha, the first one, sure. I got three no's before the first yes, and one of the no's was brutal enough that I still remember the exact wording of the email, seven years on. "Not a fit for our current programme." That was it. No cruelty in it, just... nothing. You feel like a fella standing at a door that was never going to open.
The yes came from a pub, believe it or not. Not a gallery at all, a proper old boozer in Galway that had a wall of bare plaster and the landlord said I could hang a few linos if I wanted, no commission, just don't block the toilets. And I was delighted. Absolutely made up. Hung six prints and stood across the road pretending to read a paper so I could watch people stop at the window.
So I'd say the no's are the going rate, and the first yes is nearly always the weird one that doesn't look like what you'd planned. That fella you're describing, panicking about the framing, I know him well. He's most of us. The no's don't mean your work's bad, they mean you're in the queue with everyone else. And honestly, the waiting's the thing nobody warns you about, isn't it. The no you can take. The silence kills you.
Seven years and you still have it word for word. That email must have been printed on your brain. Mine wasn't even a no, it was just silence for two months and then a polite "we'll keep you in mind," which I'm fairly sure is the gallerist version of a restraining order.
But the pub thing, that's honestly the best one I've heard. A wall of bare plaster and a landlord who just said go on then. There's something about that being the yes that feels more true than a fancy white room with a press release. And no commission and don't block the toilets, what more do you want, really.
Did you keep hanging there after, or was it a one-off? I suspect those walls got a lot more love than any gallery wall I've seen. 🙂