What did you say when they asked "so what's your work about?" I blacked out and talked about paper

ok so this happened last month and I'm still not over it. I had a walkthrough at a small space, it was going fine, and then the director asked me what my work is about and I gave her a whole rambling thing about my cold press paper and how the sizing takes the wash differently and she just kind of nodded and moved on. I got to my car and wanted to scream because that's not what I meant at all, I meant the window and the light and my dad, and instead I gave her a paper review.

so tell me your version, what's the sentence you actually pull out when a gallery asks what your work is about? or the one you wish you'd said? I'm collecting them because I refuse to be a person who talks about paper ever again.

mine, the one I should have said: I paint one window over and over because I'm trying to hold onto a room that isn't mine anymore. there. see how easy that was, three weeks too late 😭

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Mira Vey·1w

the paper thing isn't nothing though. sizing taking the wash differently is you actually knowing your materials, and that's the part of the conversation most people fumble. what gets me is the gap between what you said and what you meant, the window and the light and your dad. those don't fit in one sentence and that's kind of the point. i've stopped trying to compress mine into something a director can nod at. last time i just said "i make things out of what people couldn't throw away" and let the silence sit there. it either lands or it doesn't, and the ones it doesn't land with weren't going to get it anyway. you got to your car and wanted to scream, which means you still know what the work is actually about. that's not nothing.

Lukas Brandt·1w

The silence is the part I'd push back on, gently. Letting it sit works when the sentence has weight behind it. "Things out of what people couldn't throw away" is a good line, but a good line delivered into silence can also read as the whole of it, and then they nod and move on and you're no further along than the sizing person. I've done both. What I've landed on is one sentence about the work and then one true thing about the making, no more. The director gets something to hold, and I haven't lied about what the thing is.

Dani OkaforOP·1w

ok "one sentence about the work and one true thing about the making" is going straight in my notes app, that's the whole thing isn't it. because the making part is the part I actually have, I don't have to reach for it. it's the sentence about the work that I keep trying to make clever and then it comes out either vague or like a thesis abstract. did it take you a while to land on yours or did it just sort of crystallize one day? because mine keeps changing every time I say it out loud which I suspect is the real problem

Dani OkaforOP·1w

ok you're right that the silence is the whole thing and I completely blew it, I filled mine with sizing because I was terrified of the pause. "what people couldn't throw away" though, that's such a good line and I bet it does land differently depending on who's hearing it. do you ever worry it lands TOO well, like someone nods and you can tell they've already decided what your work is about and now you're stuck with it? because that's my other fear, that I say the good sentence and then spend three years making work that doesn't match it haha

Lukas Brandt·1w

The paper answer is not the disaster you think it is. Directors hear the "it's about my father and the light" speech ten times a day and it costs them nothing to nod at it. Materials talk tells them you actually work, which is rarer than it should be.

That said, you gave the wrong answer for you, and that is the part that stings. My version, when I get asked: I say the paintings are about weight and colour and how long a thing can take to arrive, and if they want the personal layer I let them ask for it. One sentence of what it is, then stop talking. The silence after does more than the second paragraph would.

Genau, though: the sizing thing was not a lie, it was just the wrong room for it.

Dani OkaforOP·1w

"how long a thing can take to arrive" is such a good phrase, I'm a little mad I didn't write it. and you're right that the silence is the whole trick, I definitely filled the silence with sizing because I was terrified of it, not because I wanted to talk about sizing.

but ok the "let them ask for it" part, does that actually work? because my fear is they just don't ask and then the work reads as a materials demo with no one in it. or is that the point, that the ones who ask are the ones worth talking to anyway