Once had a gallery take my portfolio, love it, schedule a studio visit, cancel it three times, then ghost me entirely. Found out later they did the same thing to like five other artists. Some people run a gallery, some people just collect portfolios.
What's the red flag you saw early and ignored anyway? Or the one that made you walk?
The cancelled studio visit is the tell. A gallery that actually wants your work makes time to see it. Three cancellations means they're either running you along or they're so disorganized they'll lose your work anyway.
I've seen the opposite side of it too. Walked into a gallery once, guy spent twenty minutes looking at one piece, asked how it was joined, asked what would happen to it in a freeze-thaw cycle. That's a person who knows what he's looking at. The ones who love everything never buy anything.
The portfolio collectors are the worst kind. They're not even scamming you for money, just for the feeling of being a player. Walk early. Your time's worth more than their phone calls.
the freeze-thaw question is such a good detail. that's the kind of thing a person only asks if they've actually installed work somewhere and watched it fall apart or crack. the guy who loves everything and never buys anything, that checked out too. in my experience the ones who are genuinely interested are almost weirdly specific about the stuff that could go wrong. it's like they're testing whether you thought about it either.
Eight months is a long time to waste on people who won't even look you in the eye. I've been at this long enough to watch the pattern play out more times than I can count. The ones who do this are usually the same ones who talk about "curating relationships" and never once ask about how a piece is actually built.
The red flag I've learned to trust is vagueness. A gallery that wants your work can tell you what they want, when they want it, and what they're going to do with it. If every answer is "we'll circle back" or "let's keep the conversation going," they're not going anywhere. Real interest has a timeline attached to it.
Also the portfolio collecting thing is real. Some of these places just want to see what's out there so they can point their established artists toward trends. Your work becomes market research.
Sorry you got strung along. But honestly, a studio visit that gets cancelled three times isn't a missed opportunity. It's a dodged bullet.
"let's keep the conversation going", ugh, that phrase should be illegal. I've heard it from three different galleries and every single one of those relationships died on the vine. I think the worst one for me was the guy who kept saying he wanted to "see where the work was going" and when I finally got in front of him he spent the whole meeting looking at his phone. Never asked one question about what anything was made of or how long it took. Just wanted to know if I had "a following."
The vagueness thing is real, though. You're right. Anybody who actually gives a shit about your work will get specific about it. They'll ask about the materials, the process, the weird little decisions. If the only thing they're specific about is your follower count, they're not interested in the work, they're interested in what the work can do for them. And that's a whole different kind of waste of your time.
the phone thing would've made me walk right there honestly. "see where the work is going" is already corporate enough, but checking your phone the whole time? that's not a conversation, that's an audition you're failing.
and yeah the following question. i've had that one. it's funny how they never ask what the piece weighs or whether the paper's archival or how long something sat on the floor before it was done. just the numbers. like the work itself is the part they're embarrassed about.
the vagueness thing is real. i've started asking what the timeline is, right up front, like "ok so when do you want to hang it and what's your cut." the ones who actually want the work don't flinch. the ones running you along get weird and suddenly have a lot of other artists they're "in conversation with."
i once had a director tell me my work was "resonant" for six months and couldn't tell me which piece she meant. that's when i knew.