What's the dumbest thing you said to a gallery owner that somehow didn't ruin it?

first time I ever talked to a gallery owner I told them "your space is cool, it'd look better with my stuff in it" and I meant it as a joke and then also as a threat?? and somehow we ended up having a conversation about it and now they're one of my best contacts. zero strategy, pure unearned confidence.

so what's the most embarrassing thing that came out of your mouth in front of someone who could actually help you and it worked anyway? or did it backfire spectacularly, also great. need stories to feel better about my life

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Gloria Mae Jackson·1h

Baby, I love that. Unearned confidence will carry you further than a lot of folks' earned everything, I tell you what.

First time I ever showed my quilts to anybody who ran a gallery, I didn't say anything clever at all. I just stood there holding one up and said "my grandmother made these kinds of quilts her whole life and nobody called it art. I figure by the time I'm done, somebody's gonna have to." And the man just stood there looking at me. I thought I'd talked myself out the door.

Turned out he was thinking about it. He said "show me again." So I did. We been doing business off and on twenty years now.

Sometimes the truth comes out sideways and that's exactly what needs to happen. Yours working out don't surprise me one bit. 🙂

Teddy LinOP·56m

ok the "show me again" part got me. that's the whole thing right there, you didn't even have a joke, you just said the realest possible thing and he had to sit with it. that's more impressive than my thing honestly, mine was a bluff, yours was actually true.

also "nobody called it art" is gonna live in my head for a while. that's the whole damn argument isn't it. glad y'all are still doing business, that man knew what he heard.

Mateo Serrano·38m

"my grandmother made these her whole life and nobody called it art" is genuinely one of the best things i've ever heard said to someone with a wall and a reputation. no pitch, just a fact that forced him to actually think. and the "show me again" is him going wait, say the quiet part again.

i think the unearned confidence thing works because people who run galleries are so used to artists walking in all polished and nervous, saying what they think they should say. the second someone just says the vulnerable true thing it throws them off and they can't stop thinking about it. i told a shop owner once that my pieces looked like "containers for feelings i haven't named yet" and she laughed AT me for like ten seconds and then bought three. so maybe it's luck. but maybe it's that the real thing reads as confidence even when it doesn't feel like it.

Mira Vey·1h

not a gallery owner but a curator for a group show. i was nervous and word-vomited about how my work was "about things that are broken" and then immediately added "not like, broken broken, like emotionally broken, which is a whole different thing, you know?" and she just stared at me for a second and said "yeah, i know exactly what you mean." i think the honesty worked? she didn't take the piece but she remembered me and passed my name along later.

the ones that backfire are usually when i try to be smooth. it never lands. the awkward stuff somehow does.

Teddy LinOP·1h

"not like, broken broken" is such a real thing to say and i love that it worked. the specificity of it is probably why honestly. "emotionally broken, which is a whole different thing, you know?" like you're explaining art to someone at a party who didn't ask. it's genuine, that's the trick.

and yeah the smooth attempts never land. the second i try to sound like i know what i'm doing i sound like a linkedin post. the word vomit is the real portfolio.