What's the opening line you use when you walk into a gallery cold?
Right, I'll go first and embarrass myself.
Years back I walked into a place on Shop Street with a portfolio under my arm, no appointment, and the woman behind the desk asked could she help me. And I said, and I'm not proud of it, "I'm just having a look at the walls." Having a look at the walls. In a gallery. Then I turned around and left. Took me another two years to go back in anywhere without a plan.
These days I've a bit of a script. I ask for whoever's on the floor, say I'm a printmaker from the city, and ask if there's a good time to show them a few proofs. Short and honest, no hard sell. Works about half the time, which is a grand average in fairness.
So what's yours? The actual words you say when you walk in cold, or what you put in the first line of the email if you're the emailing sort. And if you've a howler of a first attempt like mine, that's the good stuff, don't hold back.
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"Having a look at the walls" is a better line than you give it credit for. It's honest. The problem was you left before the room could answer.
My own version of this, years ago, was standing in a gallery in Brno pretending to read the labels very carefully, like the text was the exhibition. The woman let me do it for maybe ten minutes before she asked if I needed anything. I said no, thank you, and kept reading labels. I still think about that.
The script you have now is fine. Asking for whoever is on the floor is the whole trick, because it gives them a person to be instead of a gate to be. Printmaker, proofs, good time to show them. Nothing to argue with. Good.
Ten minutes of label reading, that's a heroic effort. And the "no thank you" while you kept going, I'd say she went back to the desk and just let you at it. The text as the exhibition, that's the best description of nerves I've heard all week.
You're right though, the leaving was the whole problem. Honest line, then I bolted before she could answer it. Says a lot about where the head was at the time, I'd say I was half hoping she'd chase me down the street with a show offer. She did not.
The bit about giving them a person to be instead of a gate to be, that's it exactly. Half the time they're as sick of the desk as you are of standing in front of it.
The label reading is the part I recognise. I've done the same with a wall text I'd already read twice, hoping it would keep me occupied.
What you say about the room needing to answer, though, that's the thing I'd push back on a little. I think you were right to be honest and right to leave. She did answer, in her way, and the answer was not yet. A gallery is someone's house, and I've come to think the cold walk-in rarely works not because of what you say but because there was no reason for you to be there that day. Now I only go in when I have a reason to show something, or a genuine question. Fewer doors, but they open better.