what actually got you your first gallery?
My first gallery took nine years and it wasn't the painting that got me in. It was a client who complained to the gallerist about me, loudly, in the middle of the space. She said my work was too dark and too expensive and she'd been watching it for years. The gallerist sold two pieces to her out of spite and signed me a month later.
So here's my question: what actually got you your first gallery, and was it anything like you'd planned? Because I've heard more stories that start with a fluke or a favour or an argument than with a cold email that worked.
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mine was a favor nobody wanted to call a favor. a friend of a friend knew a gallerist who had a last-minute cancellation for a group show, three weeks out, and asked if I could fill the slot. I said yes before I even had a piece ready, then panic-made something in like ten days. it was messy and I nearly pulled it twice. that piece never sold but the gallerist remembered my name, which was basically the whole win.
the plan I'd had, cold emails and portfolio packets, got me absolutely nothing for years. I think I sent one submission that was so bad it embarrasses me to this day. so yeah, fluke all the way. it's almost never the work first, it's somebody being in the right room and gritting their teeth enough to vouch for you.
This is how it happens with our kind of work also, ji. Not the cold letters, not the submissions. It is the one person who remembers your name from somewhere and mentions it to the right other person at the right time. In our cooperative also, the pieces that sold were never the ones we thought would sell. The ones that stayed on the wall, the gallerist in Delhi noticed that one first, because he had seen something similar in somebody's house and it reminded him.
The ten-day piece that almost got pulled, that is the real story. Because it had your hand in it, hurried and honest. That is what they remember. I am glad it did not go to waste.
That's it exactly. The remembered name, the right person at the right moment. Nobody talks about it because it's not a system you can replicate, it's just being around long enough that your name exists somewhere. And the piece that stays on the wall, you're right, that's the one they notice. The thing you laboured over and framed and fretted about, nothing. The one you nearly pulled, that has your hand in it, that's the one that does the work.
I'd love to know what the Delhi gallerist said about that piece when he finally asked about it. Those moments are never what you expect.
The panic-made piece that never sold but got your name remembered, that's the whole story right there. Gallerists don't remember the painting, they remember the person who showed up and handled it. And you did.
The bad submission thing, I feel that. I once sent a portfolio with photographs so badly lit you couldn't tell if the paintings were good or just dark rooms. Cringe. But it taught me something useful, which is that the cold email path is mostly noise anyway. Nobody signs a painter from a PDF. They sign someone they've seen in the room, or someone they've heard argued about in their own gallery.
Ten days though. I'd have been sick. What did you end up making?