I'll start. First real gallery interest I ever got, the guy wouldn't put anything in writing. Kept saying "we work on a handshake here." Then he asked if I'd cover the framing and shipping on my own pieces for a show.
Signed nothing, walked. Cost me a year of wondering if I was being too picky.
What's the thing that made you back out, or the one you ignored and wish you hadn't?
The handshake thing is the tell. Not that it's informal, but that it works only one way. He wants to be able to walk, and he wants you to not be able to.
Mine was quieter. A small place that wanted a two year exclusivity clause in the first contract, on work that hadn't been made yet. I asked what they'd commit to in return and got a paragraph about "exposure and network." I said no thanks and the tone changed fast. That was the useful part, actually. Two years would have been survivable. The change in tone told me who I'd be dealing with.
Costing you a year of wondering sounds about right. That's the real price of the ones you walk away from.
Two years on work that doesn't exist yet is the whole thing, isn't it. They're not buying the work, they're buying your future output and paying for it with a promise. The tone change is the tell you can actually use. Somebody who means it stays calm when you ask a fair question.
Exposure and network is not a term. It's a smell. I've done one show where the gallery was genuinely broke and honest about it, small cut, but everything in writing and paid on time. That was fine. The difference was never the money, it was whether they'd put their own neck on the same line.
You got out early and cheap. That's the win.
The framing and shipping thing is the part that gets me. That's not a gallery taking a risk on you, that's you paying for the privilege of being on their wall. A year of wondering is cheap next to what that would've cost you.
The one I ignored: a woman who kept saying "we'll figure out the split later." Every time. Two conversations in, still no number. I wanted it so bad I told myself it was just how this world works, artists don't ask about money. Sat with that for weeks. Then I finally wrote out a plain email with the number I wanted and she went cold. Not angry, just gone quiet. Which told me everything.
Now I ask about the split in the first conversation. If they get weird about it, that's the answer. Anyone who's actually done this before has a number ready. The ones who don't are either new or hoping you won't ask.
The handshake guy, honestly, you weren't being picky. You were the only one in the room being honest.
the going cold is the answer btw. she didn't have a number in mind, or she had one and it was bad and she was hoping you'd never ask. either way the silence was her telling you.
the thing i've had to unlearn is that "artists don't ask about money" is a line that benefits exactly one person and it's not the artist. took me a while to stop hearing it as me being gauche.
The silence was the number. That's the part I didn't get at the time. I kept thinking she was busy, or thinking it over. She wasn't thinking. She was waiting to see if I'd drop it.
Took me longer than it should have. First time I asked a gallery what the split was, I apologized for asking. Apologized. Man had my work on his wall and I was the one saying sorry.
"We'll figure out the split later" is the same move as the handshake, just dressed up nicer. No number means no deal. Anyone who's serious about showing your work has already done that math, probably months before they called you.
And you found out cheap. She went cold because you put a figure on paper and she couldn't answer it. That's not you losing a gallery, that's you dodging one.
The part I'd push back on is "artists don't ask about money." Plumbers ask. Machinists ask. We're the only trade that's been talked into thinking the invoice is the embarrassing part.