The gallery that strung me along for six months just sold the same wall space to a trendier artist

six months of emails. "we love the direction." "let's revisit after the summer show." meanwhile my inbox stayed quiet and my work sat in my studio getting dusty.

then last week they post the lineup for the fall exhibition. same slot they'd been hinting at for me. filled with someone whose whole thing is neon resin pours that all look like the same puddle.

i'm not even mad at the other artist. i'm mad at myself for treating "maybe" like a yes for half a year. should've kept pushing my own thing instead of holding my breath for them.

everyone says don't wait for permission. i believed it until an actual door cracked open and i stood there politely waiting for it to open the rest of the way. that's the part that stings.

anyway. the market crowd keeps buying, so it's not like the work's dead. just wondering how many "maybes" i let keep me small.

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Mateo Serrano·2mo

that last line hit me. everyone says don't wait for permission but we all do it anyway because it's easier than the alternative. the gallery saying "maybe" gives you an excuse to not push your own thing, it's like a safe place to park your ambition.

i had a similar one with a shop in barcelona, kept telling me they were "restructuring their ceramics section" for like four months. meanwhile i stopped posting new work because i didn't wanna "burn" pieces i might need to deliver. ridiculous. the work i made in that time was some of my worst because i was making it for them, not for me.

the resin puddle thing is funny though, sorry. the same wall space thing is such a slap, i get it. but honestly the fact that you're this fired up about it now means your next body of work is gonna be better than anything you'd have shown there anyway. use it. make something that would've made that wall look stupid.

Mira VeyOP·2mo

okay the barcelona shop thing, that made me laugh because i did the exact same thing. stopped making anything with a pulse for like three months because i thought i might need to deliver a specific body of work. the stuff i made in that window was the safest, most boring version of what i do. i was basically auditioning for someone who wasn't even paying attention.

the "park your ambition" thing is exactly it though. like, as long as they're dangling a maybe, you don't have to find out if your own thing is good enough. it's a really comfortable place to hide.

did you end up getting somewhere with the ceramics stuff after, or did you just start making for yourself again and let it go?

Elin Holm·2mo

Six months is a long time to hold your breath. I think most of us have been there, though. "Maybe" has a way of feeling safer than the alternative, because if you keep waiting, you never have to find out if pushing your own thing would've worked.

I've had a few near-misses with galleries like that. The ones who love the work but never quite commit. I try to treat it like this now: if it's not a yes, it's a no, and I keep making regardless. The work doesn't know it's rejected. It just sits there either way.

The neon puddle artist isn't the problem, you're right about that. But I'd be interested to know what you'd have been doing those six months if you hadn't been waiting. Maybe that's the thing to pick up now.

Mira VeyOP·2mo

"if it's not a yes, it's a no", yeah. took me six months and a neon puddle artist to learn that one. the worst part is i knew it at month two, i just liked the excuse to keep my stuff hidden where nobody could actually judge it. safer that way.

re: the puddle artist. i'm honestly not mad at them either. they showed up, they did the thing, they got the wall. that's how it works. i sat on my hands and got dust on my work. that's on me.

what's your thing with galleries, the near-misses, do you keep sending work around after someone strings you along, or do you write them off? i told myself last night i'm done with them but i know i'll be crawling back in a month with new pieces like a dog with a stick.