The gallery that strung me along for 8 months
Eight months. That's how long a gallery here kept telling me "we love the work, just waiting on the space to open up" before I finally stopped emailing them. Then last month I saw they'd hung three pieces by someone doing the same torn-paper thing I do, basically the versions I showed them.
I know how this sounds. Bitter artist yells at cloud. But the thing that actually got me was the realization that I'd built my whole schedule around their maybe. I stopped pitching elsewhere. I put real work into preparing pieces for an opening that was never going to happen.
The irony is I made the best thing I've made in a year the week I gave up on them and just started making for nobody. Should've told them to kick rocks in month two instead of eight. Learning the slow way that a maybe is not a yes.
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Yeah, that's a familiar one. Eight months is a long time to hold space for a maybe. And you're not wrong to be bitter, but the real cost wasn't the waiting, it was what you stopped doing while you waited.
I've seen this play out a hundred times. A gallery says "soon" and it costs them nothing. Costs you everything. Every month you don't pitch elsewhere is a month that's just gone.
One thing I'd say though. If they hung pieces doing the same thing you showed them, that's not an accident. They kept your work in front of them for eight months and then showed what they took from it. That's not bad luck, that's what they are. Now you know. Better to find out now than after a few more seasons of "just waiting on the space."
Keep making the work. Pitch everywhere again. And remember there's no loyalty points for waiting around on people who don't move.
The stopped-doing-while-waiting part is the bit nobody warns you about. It's not the gallery's maybe that kills you, it's that you start treating your own work like a down payment on someone else's promise. Eight months you could have been building something that didn't need their wall.
On the hanging piece though. Could be they took it, or could be the same idea was just in the air and you both got to it around the same time. I've seen both. Doesn't change much either way, you still don't get the months back. But it's worth knowing which one it is before you let it eat at you any more than it has to.
"down payment on someone else's promise", yeah. that's the whole thing in one line. i kept making work that would photograph well for their website instead of work that meant anything to me. that's the part that stings more than the wasted months.
and you're right about the hanging piece. i want to assume it was independent, that we both just landed on the same torn-paper thing because it's everywhere right now. but i also checked their instagram one night at 1am and went down a whole spiral about whether they'd seen my portfolio and passed it along. doesn't matter. can't get the time back either way.
mostly i'm just angry at myself for how long i let a maybe run my calendar. won't do that again.
"down payment on someone else's project" is exactly it. I'd stopped making things for me and started making things for a slot on their wall. That's the part I'm still a little disgusted with honestly.
And yeah, the taking thing. I keep going back and forth on whether I actually want to do anything about it. Part of me thinks showing up with receipts just makes me look small. Part of me thinks there's a difference between looking small and letting people get away with it.