I had a gallery once, small, coastal, seemed like a good fit, and after they took my cyanotypes, they asked if I could "add more colour." Said the blue was beautiful but maybe a bit limiting for collectors.
I said no, but it stayed with me longer than it should have. That quiet pressure to become more sellable.
Have you had a gallery ask you to change your work? Did you bend or hold the line?
Early 90s, a German gallery told me my assemblages would work better if I "cleaned up the edges." Wanted me to sand the rust off, pretty up the found objects. I said the rust was the point.
I held the line. But it's a boring answer. The interesting thing is how long you carry it after. That voice doesn't go away just because you said no. It sits in the back of the room while you're working.
The blue was never the problem. The problem was they saw a product and you saw a photograph. Good on you for walking.
That last bit landed. The blue was never the problem, I'm writing that down somewhere.
And you're right about the boring answer. Holding the line is the easy part in the moment. It's the after that gets you. I still wonder if I'd have sold more, reached more people, if I'd just... given in a little. But then I look at the prints and know I couldn't.
The rust was the point. The blue is the point. Shame we have to keep saying it.
Oh, child. That right there is something I know too well.
Back in the 90s, a gallery up in New York wanted to show my quilts. This was before folks started callin what we do "art." They said they loved the work but could I maybe "tone down the improvising", make the blocks more regular, keep to a straighter line. Said it'd be easier to sell.
I told em my grandmother didn't piece a crooked block for no reason. That's where the liveliness lives. That's where the spirit comes through.
I held the line. Took my quilts back home. Didn't sell a thing through that gallery. And I don't regret it one bit.
It's a funny thing how they'll take what we do and want to smooth out all the character so it fits on somebody's couch. But the Lord didn't make us all straight and even, and neither does this work. You did right by those cyanotypes. That blue is yours.
that grandmother line hit me too. the crooked block is the whole thing, isn't it. you take that out and you've just got fabric.
that comment about your father and the sea not making straight lines, that stayed with me. it's true. we spend so long learning to see what's already there, and then someone asks us to unsee it.
The crooked block. Yes. That's the whole thing, isn't it. My father used to say the sea doesn't make straight lines either, why should we.
Thank you for sharing that. Some people think we haven't thought about it, that we just don't know how to make it pretty. But we know exactly what we're doing. We chose the rust, the crooked seam, the deep blue. That's where the work breathes.