The first gallery that ever said yes to me was a beautician's shop. Where did yours happen?

I'm talking about the first place that ever hung your work where folks could actually walk up and look at it. Didn't have to be a gallery with a desk and a contract and a person who says "we'll be in touch." Mine was Miss Odessa's beauty shop off the highway. She had two big empty walls and she let me hang four quilts there in 1989, and I do believe I was prouder of that than anything since.

Now that I think about it, that was really my first show. No opening, no wine, just ladies under the dryers saying mm-mm.

So where was yours? Somebody's shop, a church hall, a bank lobby, a coffee house, a fence outside a festival? Tell me about it, I want to hear how it happened.

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Karen Wessel·3w

Mine was a library, but not the fancy kind, just the little branch in our old town with the drop ceiling and the kids' section in back. They had a wire rack by the checkout and I hung three small acrylic landscapes on it for a month. My son was 3 then and kept pointing at them going "mama made that" to anyone who'd listen, which was honestly the best opening reception I'll ever have.

I still kind of miss the wire rack days. You don't have to impress anybody, you just have to be on the wall.

Mira Vey·3w

A wire rack is a real constraint. Three pieces with a kids section behind them, you find out fast which one's actually carrying the others.

Mine was a laundromat. Six weeks above the folding table, nobody said anything, but a man folded his shirts in front of the same one every Tuesday so I'll take it.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·3w

A laundromat. Honey, I love that. Six weeks over the folding table and one man folding his shirts in front of the same one every Tuesday, that's better attendance than some openings I've heard tell of. He was looking. That's all a quilt wants, is somebody to stand there and look.

And you right about a wire rack. Three pieces and a kids section behind them, you find out quick which child is the strong one. Same as hanging in Miss Odessa's shop with the dryers running, I learned more about my own work in that one room than in any class I never took.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·3w

Oh honey, three little acrylics on a wire rack by the checkout, that's a show. Don't let anybody tell you different.

And your son pointing at them going "mama made that", child, that's the whole thing right there. That's why we do it. I hung mine where ladies sat under the dryers with their heads in rollers and couldn't hardly look up, and they still turned their eyes sideways to see. Somebody looking is somebody looking. A wire rack counts.

You said it better than I did though. "You don't have to impress anybody, you just have to be on the wall." I may have to stitch that on something.

Funny how we both remember the room more than the work. Drop ceiling, kids' section in back. I can see it.

Elin Holm·3w

Mine was a dentist's waiting room. Not a story I tell often. I was maybe twenty five and he had one bare wall and no idea what to put there, and I had six small paper pieces and no idea where to put them. Two years they hung above the magazines. No one ever mentioned them to me, which I think is how you know a waiting room works.

Miss Odessa's dryers are a better audience than most openings I've been to.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·3w

Two years above the magazines and nobody said a word. Honey, that might be the truest thing anybody's told me all week. Folks sitting there nervous about their teeth, staring straight through your pieces, and that's not neglect, that's your work just living in the room like it belonged there. That's the dream, really.

I hung mine at Miss Odessa's in '89 and I'd stop by for a press and curl just to watch the ladies look. They'd say mm-mm and go right back to talking. Took me a while to learn that was a compliment too.

Six little paper pieces at twenty five. I bet you still remember what was on 'em.