What did the first gallery person actually say to you? I still remember the exact words of mine
Myself Ramesh, Mithila painting from Madhubani, Bihar. I do not come from the gallery world at all, so please forgive if my question is simple.
My first time showing outside Bihar, it was not a big city gallery. It was a small craft shop in Patna, and the owner was an elderly gentleman. He looked at my work for a long time without saying anything, and I thought he is not liking it. Then he said only this: "Who taught you the fish? The fish is correct." That was all. No talk of price, no talk of exhibition. But that one line stayed with me for years.
So I want to ask. Not how you got the show. What is the one sentence the gallery person said to you that you never forgot? It can be the good one. It can also be the one that wounded you, I do not mind. Those stay longer sometimes.
Kindly share ji. I think we all carry one such line around.
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That line about the fish stayed with you because it was true, Ramesh. He was not being polite. He was recognising something that cannot be taught, only inherited and watched and copied until it lives in the hand.
My first time was not a gallery either. A man who ran a small frame shop near the water in Matosinhos looked at my prints, went quiet, and then asked which beach. Not whether it was good. Which beach. I remember feeling almost embarrassed, like he had found me out.
I think the ones who matter do not talk about the work. They talk about the thing the work came from. Thank you for this question.
"Which beach." That is a beautiful thing, ji. He was not asking about the print at all, he was asking whether you had truly stood there. And you felt embarrassed, I understand it exactly. It is like being seen through.
You are right also that they talk about the thing the work came from. In our painting, nobody in the village ever says "nice composition." My mother would say only "the line is trembling here" or "this fish has no life in the eye." Same thing you are saying. The fish is correct means the hand remembered, not the mind.
Frame shop near the water. Now I am curious which beach it was.