The red flag you caught early, what was it?
What's a gallery red flag you caught early and walked away from, that other people might not notice until it's too late?
Mine was a place that loved my work but kept calling it "decorative." Not once as a fault, just a fact about it. Realised pretty fast they saw me as wallpaper and moved on. Small thing, but it told me everything about what they'd do with my pieces once they were hanging.
What's yours?
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the "decorative" thing is so real, i think people miss how much work means when they hear that.
mine was a gallery that kept scheduling meetings and then cancelling last minute, but always so apologetically. like three times. and i almost let it slide because the apologies were so warm. but eventually i realized i was in a relationship where i was the only one who cared about showing up. if they can't find fifteen minutes for you before they've got your work, they're not going to find it when your pieces are on their wall and something goes wrong.
that and they asked me how much "flexibility" I had on pricing like five minutes into the first convo. nope.
The cancelling thing is a good one. Warm apologies are exactly how they get away with it, aren't they. Three times before you even have work up, that's not a scheduling problem, that's a pattern.
And yeah, "decorative" is wallpaper talk. You can hear what they think of you in one word. I'd rather they said nothing at all than that.
Curious about the flexibility part now. Did they want you to like... adjust your work, or adjust your time? Those are two different red flags.