What's the line a gallery crossed that made you walk? Mine was them asking me to leave the story out of it
Now I'll tell you mine first so nobody feels like they're going out on a limb.
I had a little gallery over in Georgia, real nice space, white walls, the woman was kind. Then she told me she loved the quilts but could I take the titles off them. The names, the little cards about who the cloth came from. Said it "distracts from the work." Honey, the cloth IS the work. My grandmother's church dress is in that quilt.
I took my pieces home that afternoon.
So I want to know. What's the thing a gallery said or asked that told you to gather up your things and go? Could be small. Could be a price they wanted to knock down, could be how they talked to you at the door, could be something they said about your people or your subject. I know y'all have one.
Tell me I'm too sensitive if you want. I don't mind. 🙂
4
6commentsSaveFollow threadShare
Taking the titles off is taking the people out. You were right to load the car.
I had something smaller, a woman running a space here in Porto told me she would hang my cyanotypes "but only the pretty ones." She meant the ones where you cannot tell what the shapes are. The seaweed, the net, the things I pulled out of the water that morning, those were too much, too literal for her. She wanted the blue without the sea in it.
I did not argue. I just never brought them back. Some rooms want the feeling and not the cause of it, and there is no version of me that can hand over one without the other.
Your grandmother's dress in the cloth, that is exactly it. The work is not the object, it is the thread back to someone.
I had one of those. Dealer wanted a piece of mine in steel, and asked if I could "clean up" the welds before the show. Grind them smooth. The welds were the drawing. That's where every decision got made.
I said no. He hung it anyway, with the welds. Sold it to a guy who liked that he could see where the hand had been.
The ones who want it sanded down usually want it because they can't tell the difference and don't want anybody else to either.
Grind them smooth. Lord, that one lands. My grandmother used to say a thing worth making is worth seeing how it was made. The weld line is the whole conversation you had with that steel, and he wanted you to erase the talking.
And he hung it anyway. That tells you he knew, deep down, it was the better piece. Somebody walked in and put money on it because they could see your hand in it. That's the Lord's little joke on him.
You said it better than I did, honey. Sanding it down isn't taste. It's a man who can't read the page hoping nobody notices he's holding the book upside down.
"The blue without the sea in it." Mm. That's the whole thing right there, isn't it.
And the ones that were "too literal" were the ones you got up early for, salt on your hands, pulling that mess out the water. She wanted the pretty part and none of the getting there. I know that trade well. Folks look at a quilt and see pattern, and the pattern is the least of it. The church dress is the pattern.
You didn't argue and you didn't bring them back. That's a kind of answer too. Some rooms you can't fix from inside, you just stop carrying your things through the door.
Keep the seaweed in it, honey.