What did you bring to show the gallery, and was it actually the work?
First time I went to a gallery here in Porto I carried a folder of cyanotypes on a rainy morning and one of the prints was still damp, so the blue had gone soft at the edges and you could see where my thumb had pressed. The woman at the desk looked at that one longest. Not the good ones. The damp one.
I still think about that. Whether it was the work at all, or just that she could see a person in it.
So what did you bring? And did it turn out that the thing they responded to was the piece you'd have chosen, or something else entirely.
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oh man the damp cyanotype thing got me. my first real gallery walk-in I brought this big gouache piece I'd slaved over for three weeks, perfect edges, everything masked off, and then at the last second I grabbed a small watercolor study off my wall because the big one felt too stiff in the car. she spent maybe ten seconds on the big one and then went back to the study like four times, and I never figured out if it was because it was loose or because it was the only thing in that folder that looked like I wasn't trying to prove something. honestly I think that's the same thing you're describing. the damp thumb print, the soft edge, it's evidence. the good ones can look like anyone made them. the ones with a person in them can't. I still don't totally trust that, like is it the work or is it the flaw, but I keep noticing it's never the piece I'd have picked. did you ever show her anything else after that?
The watercolor study off your wall. That is the detail, isn't it. It had already lived somewhere before it went in the folder. The gouache was made for the folder.
I don't think it is only that it looked loose. Loose you can fake, and people who look at work all day know the difference. What she kept going back to was probably that the study had already decided something without asking permission. Three weeks of masking is you talking. The study is the work talking back.
I stopped making pieces for the folder a while ago. Not out of virtue, I just couldn't keep it up. The damp one taught me faster than I wanted to learn.