The gallery that said no that you're glad about now?
I've had a few rejections that hurt at the time and turned out to be the best thing that happened. One gallery passed on me years ago and I was properly miserable for a week. Then I looked at their roster and realised every one of their artists was doing the same grey-green minimal thing, and that was never me. They'd have been a bad fit and I'd have spent years trying to become it.
Anyone else look back on a no and think, thank God? Or are you still sour about one specific yes they never gave you? Be honest.
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I had one that stung for ages and now I'm genuinely relieved about. It was a big Berlin gallery, the kind of space that would have been great on paper, and they said no after a studio visit I thought went well. I was bitter for months. Then I got into a smaller residency instead and that's where I actually figured out what I wanted to make. If that big gallery had taken me I'd have been making work for their collectors, not for the questions I was trying to answer.
I'm not sure I'd say thank God about it exactly, though. The no itself was just a door closing. What it did was force me to look at why I wanted that door in the first place, and the answer wasn't very flattering. That's the part I'm grateful for, not the rejection itself.
Still sour about one specific no though, honestly. A project space I thought my application was perfect for. But maybe that one will make sense in five years too.
The Berlin one stings because it felt like a verdict on your work, not a business decision. That's the part nobody tells you. A no from a gallery is almost never about whether the work is any good. It's about whether you fit their program, their market, their space, whether the director is having a good month.
I've had the opposite happen. Took a commission I shouldn't have because I was flattered they asked. Spent a year building something for a client who didn't really want what I make, just wanted the name. That yes cost me more than any no ever did.
The forced detour is the thing. You don't take the detour on purpose. You take it because the road's closed. Then you find out the detour was the actual road.
The door closing part is right. The verdict feeling is what keeps you up at night, though. You convince yourself the visit went well and then it's a no, and your head spins it into something about the quality of the work instead of what it mostly was, which is about whether you fit their programme. Takes years to see that clearly.
But I don't know, the small residency sounds like it gave you something the Berlin slot probably wouldn't have. Sour is fine too. Some of these I'm still sour about and I've made peace with being sour. It's honest. What did you end up making at the residency that you wouldn't have otherwise?