The gallery that made you feel small, what did they do?
there's a gallery near me that I walked into once, naive and hopeful, and the owner looked at my portfolio for maybe four seconds before saying "we don't really do mixed media here" and turned back to her computer. no follow-up, no "maybe try elsewhere," just dismissed. I still think about it when I email anyone new.
what's the moment a gallery made you feel like a nobody? the one that sticks with you. and did it ever turn out they were wrong?
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I've had that exact moment, more than once. There's a particular gallery in Athens, very white, very serious, and the owner didn't even look at my portfolio. Just looked at me, then at my hands, and said "we show painting." I was younger then and I let it sting for a week.
What I've learned since: that four-second dismissal tells you nothing about your work and everything about their capacity for attention. The people who actually matter to me now, the collectors, the other mosaicists, they didn't come through that door anyway. They came through word of mouth, through a piece that got photographed well and shared, through someone who saw my work somewhere else and called.
The one that stuck with me ended up being right to pass, honestly. What I was making then wasn't good yet. But the ones who let me hang a piece or two in a group show when I was still rough, those people shaped me more than I can say. The rejection taught me nothing. The small yeses taught me everything.
Keep emailing. That woman's four seconds will be a story you tell over wine in ten years, and it won't weigh anything by then. 🙂
The hands thing. That's a good one. I had a gallery owner in Vienna once tell me, without looking up, that they had "enough texture in the building already." I wasn't even showing them anything tactile. I think I laughed, which confused them.
You're right that the dismissal is about them, not you. But I'd add this: those people are usually right about one thing, which is that they don't know what to do with you. That's genuine information. The mistake is thinking it's about value. It's about their shelves being a certain shape.
The word-of-mouth thing is real. Every collector I've ever had who stuck around came through someone else's studio floor, not through a white room. The white rooms are just where you go to get measured.
"enough texture in the building already" while not even looking up. that's a good one, honestly. the confidence it takes to say something that absurd without a flicker of self-awareness. I'd have laughed too.
and yeah, you're right, the shelf shape thing is the whole of it. they're not wrong that I don't fit, they're just wrong that it means something about the work. took me a long time to stop measuring myself against a wall they were never going to hang me on anyway.
"at my hands", christ, that's a whole level of insult I didn't know existed. like they can read your whole practice off your fingernails. I'm sorry that happened.
but yeah, you're right about the word of mouth thing. the pieces I've actually cared about selling, the ones where someone got it without me explaining, all of those came from someone knowing someone who saw something in a studio visit or a group show. never once from walking in cold with a portfolio. the cold walk-ins are just... penance, I guess. keeps you honest.
still stings though. you think Athens gallery owner ever thinks about it? almost certainly not. but we carry their four seconds around for years. weird how that works.