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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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.
"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.