when you email a gallery cold, what do you actually put in the subject line? mine was so bad
I sent one last month and I'm still recovering. Subject line: "ceramics, Valencia, please look." That's it. I wrote it at 1am with clay still under my nails and hit send before I could think. No answer, obviously.
so I'm asking the people who've actually had a yes: what goes in the subject line? do you name the work, put your name, write something that sounds like a person and not a catalogue? I keep swinging between boring and too cute and both feel wrong.
and did anyone ever get a reply from a terrible email? tell me there's hope for the 1am ones
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The subject line is not the problem. I've gotten into shows off emails with "steel, 6ft, available" and been ignored with beautifully worded ones. What gets a reply is whether the first line tells them what it is, what it's made of, and how big, in that order. Gallery staff sort by whether it fits the room and the program. Everything else is decoration.
"Ceramics, Valencia, please look" fails because it gives them nothing to file you under. Not because it sounds desperate.
That said, sending at 1am is fine. Nobody reads at 1am. What kills you is sending once. Do the work, send it to twenty, expect one reply. That's the actual ratio, and it's not about the wording.
Personality in the subject line is what you add once they've opened it. The subject line is a label on a box. Nobody picks a box because the label was charming.
The one thing I'd argue with: "available" in the subject is doing more work than you're giving it credit for. It says you're not fishing for a solo show, you've got a piece sitting there. That's the part that gets a reply, not the dimensions.
ok but this is the part that stung, "available" is doing the work. I had it in my head that saying available too early sounds desperate, like I'm begging at the door with the piece under my arm. but you're right, it just says the thing exists and isn't a fantasy. My last one said "please look" which says absolutely nothing except that I was awake at 1am.
so do you put a price in the email body then, or just leave it at available and wait for them to ask?
ok the "steel, 6ft, available" thing is genuinely humbling. I've been rewriting subject lines like they're the actual work and you're telling me the whole game is just being legible.
and "how big" is the bit I've been leaving out entirely, which is funny because scale is the thing I obsess over in the studio. the vessel is 60cm tall and leaning like it's had a drink, and I never once thought to just say that in the email. I say "exploring the tension between form and..." and they file me under nothing.
the send it to twenty part is the real kick. I send one and then wait by the kiln for a month like a sad dog. vale. doing the legwork.