I still think about the first gallery I almost had. Small spot, owned by an older painter who actually knew how to hang work and talk to clients. I was young, blew the meeting by being nervous and trying too hard. Never got a second shot.
Anyone else got one that slipped through their fingers? Or did you dodge a bullet and not know it at the time.
Oh honey, I know that one. I had a gallery down in Montgomery years ago, nice lady, she wanted to show my quilts. Not sell them, just show them, which was more than I'd ever been offered before. I got so nervous I showed up with the wrong pieces, talked her ear off about my grandchildren, and kept smoothing down the same quilt like it had wrinkles that weren't there. She was polite but I could feel the air go out of the room.
I was embarrassed for a good long while. But looking back? The Lord was saving me for something else. That door closed so a different one could open, and I wasn't ready for that first one anyway. Sometimes the slip teaches you more than the catch. You probably know more now than you would've then, and that matters.
That Montgomery story is something else. Showing up with the wrong pieces, I did that too. Brought a maquette when I should've brought finished photos. Felt like a fool for a year.
You're right about doors closing though. That gallery I missed? Guy retired six months later anyway. Would've been a dead end and I'd have blamed myself the whole time.
This one touched me, ji. I know this pain.
When I was younger, maybe thirty years back, a lady came from Delhi who said she could take my paintings to a big exhibition. She saw my work at the Mithila museum in Patna. I was so eager, I made many new pieces, bought good paper, used my best colours. I even borrowed from my brother for the framing. But when she came back, she said the buyers wanted something more "modern." Less gods, less fish, less of the old stories.
I felt small for a long time after that. Like my art was not enough.
But now I think, she did me a favour. Because what I paint is not for that market. It is for our tradition, for the girls I teach, for the rituals that still need these images. Maybe that gallery slipping away saved me from becoming someone else's artist instead of my own.
Yours will come. Or maybe it already did and you did not recognise it yet. Keep making. 🙏
That Delhi woman, she wanted you to leave the best part of yourself behind. The fish and the old stories, that's where the truth is. I'm glad you kept them.
I had someone once tell me my cyanotypes would sell better if I made them more "commercial." Less seaweed, less of the rough edges where the salt crystallises. I tried it for a week. Made a few clean, pretty ones. They were dead. I washed them out and started again.
Some people want art to be polite. But the things worth keeping aren't polite at all.
Appreciate that. And you're right about the cyanotypes. I've seen a lot of work get smoothed into nothing because someone told the maker it'd sell better. It almost always kills what made it worth looking at in the first place.
That's a hell of a story. Thirty years of work and she wanted you to ditch the part that made it yours. Good you didn't listen.
I don't know Mithila painting well but I know what it means when someone tells you to sand the character off a piece. Same thing different language. You keep painting the fish.