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sure look we've all got a horror story or two about walking into a gallery with your portfolio and knowing inside five minutes it was a dead loss. give us the worst one. I'll go first. maybe eight years ago, still pretty green, got a meeting with this gallery in a city I won't name. small place, grand, but the fella running it spent the whole time looking at his phone while I was pulling prints out. didn't ask me one question about the work. then he told me he could "make me" if I was willing to "compromise a little" which turned out to mean make stuff that looked like the fella three doors down who was selling. I packed up my stuff, thanked him, and he actually said "are you sure" like I was the one wasting his time. still makes my blood warm thinking about it. what about ye? ever walk into a meeting and wish you'd stayed in bed?

I want to settle something. When you finally sit down with a gallery, what is in your hands? First serious meeting I ever had, I carried a folder of dodgy photocopies because I had no money for prints, and the woman across the table looked at them for maybe four seconds. I got the show anyway. Second meeting, years later, I arrived with a proper portfolio, beautiful prints, cost me a small fortune, and got nothing. So I have stopped trusting my own theory. Tell me what you actually bring. Laptop, printed sheets, a single photograph, the object itself if it fits through the door, or genuinely nothing but your voice. And did it help or was it just something to hold. I am looking for a pattern to believe in.

ok so this is maybe silly but I need the group's help, I have a first meeting with a small gallery here in Valencia next week and I keep thinking about the wrong things. my first ever gallery visit two years ago I came straight from the studio, hands still grey under the nails, clay dust all down my jeans, and the woman was nice about it but I could feel her looking at my shoes. I got the show anyway (a tiny one, three pieces, corner of the room) but I've never stopped wondering if I should have made an effort. or if the clay hands actually helped, like proof I'm real. now I have this new one and I own one pair of decent trousers, and they're from my cousin's wedding. so what did you wear? full artist mode with the aprons and the paint on you, or clean clothes like a person with a job? did anyone ever get the show because they looked the part, or lose it? settle this for me, I'm genuinely split and the meeting is Tuesday

So I had a first meeting with a small gallery last month, and I could not decide what to bring, so I brought one framed pastel plus a folder of prints. The gallerist picked up the framed one, no gloves, thumb right on the surface. Pastel does not forgive that. I said nothing, obviously, I just stood there smiling like an idiot. Still not sure if bringing the real thing was a mistake or if it was the only reason she took me seriously. What do you do? Bring one piece in person, or photos only until they commit to something? And if you do bring it, how do you protect it without looking paranoid? I am starting to think I should just say out loud, please do not touch the surface, but that feels rude to say to someone who might show my work. Maybe it is not rude. Please tell me it is not rude. If anyone has a line they actually use, I will take it. Mine is currently a very anxious silence. 🙂

okay real question because i've been spiraling about this all week, what did you wear to your first in-person gallery meeting?? i have one coming up and i genuinely don't know if i should look like an artist (read: paint-stained overalls, which is just my actual life) or like a professional (read: me pretending i don't have cadmium red under my nails no matter how much i scrub). for mine i'm probably going to land somewhere in the middle because i physically cannot do business casual without feeling like i'm going to a job interview for a job i don't want. but i'm so curious what other people did. did anyone go in full paint-apocalypse and it was fine? did anyone overdress and immediately regret it? give me your stories so i stop googling "what do gallery owners expect you to wear" at 2am.

Something I'm still turning over. When I first started approaching galleries again after my long pause, I came in with a physical portfolio, prints in a proper box, the way I was taught. The gallerist barely opened it. He wanted to look at my phone. I had to scroll through photos I'd taken badly in my studio with a lamp in the way. So I'm curious how the rest of you do it. What do you actually put in front of a gallery at that first real meeting? A box, a tablet, a printed book, a link you send after? I've landed on a small printed book of about fifteen works plus a QR to the rest, but I don't know if the book even matters anymore. Tell me what you hand over and whether it worked. I want to know if I'm the last one still carrying paper.

ok story time because I need to know if this is just a me thing. I had a first meeting with a gallery owner back in March, it went SO well, she loved the work, talked about a possible show for fall, said she'd email me. And then... nothing. I followed up twice, got one "so sorry, crazy month!" and then radio silence again. It's been like four months. I keep going back and forth between "she forgot, email again" and "she's just not that into you, read the room, Dani." has anyone actually had a ghost turn into a yes after enough persistence? or is silence always the answer? and be honest, how many times did you email before you gave up?

I brought a folder of twenty pieces to mine. The gallerist looked at maybe four, then asked what I was reading. We talked about books for half an hour and she took one small collage on consignment. I've never once needed the other sixteen. So what did you actually bring, and did it matter? A big portfolio, one piece, a laptop, nothing at all? I'm curious whether the pile ever does the work or if it's always something else.

ok so I still don't totally know how this works and I've been full-time for like eight months so maybe I'm the last person who should be asking, but I'm curious how people actually got their FIRST sit-down with a gallery, like the real one, not a group show where nobody buys anything (been there lol). mine was kind of dumb luck. there's this little frame shop near me and the owner kept seeing my stuff on instagram and one day she was like "you should talk to so-and-so, she runs the space two doors down" and I did and it went ok and we're figuring something out for spring. so basically a stranger did my networking for me haha. but I know that's not how it works for most people and I kind of hate that I don't have a system yet. did you cold email? walk in with a portfolio? get introduced by another artist? apply to something and get lucky? I want the actual story, including the awkward parts. tell me yours and I'll feel less like I'm faking it over here 🙂

Had a place reach out. Wanted a full portfolio, resume, artist statement, project proposals. All before they'd even agree to a studio visit. I just sent them a link to my website and said that was all I had. Anyone else get requests like this? Feels like a lot of hoops to jump through for a shot in the dark.

Mine: a guy who ran a space out of what was basically a storage unit, promised me a two person show, then spent the whole first meeting talking about his "collector base" without ever naming one. I said yes anyway because I was desperate to be on a wall that wasn't mine. Six months later, nothing. Not even a no, just silence and a phone number that stopped working. I knew at the meeting. I remember thinking it and still signing nothing and still showing up. That's the part I'm curious about. So what's the red flag you saw and overrode, and how long before it came back around to bite you? I want the specific tell, not "he was sketchy"

okay so I emailed a gallery a few months back with a little portfolio, and they actually got back to me (!) and wanted to meet. I was so excited. Then the owner spent the whole meeting talking about "the market" and what "sells in this area" and finally asked if I could, quote, "brighten up my palette a little" because watercolor in muted tones reads "sad" apparently. I didn't walk. I should've walked. I did a whole sample piece in bright happy colors and she never even replied after that. 😭 honestly kind of glad but also what a waste of a weekend. so what's the red flag you saw on the way in and ignored anyway? or the one that made you turn around immediately? I feel like we all have at least one of these.

I'm not talking about the obvious ones like "we need money upfront." I mean the small thing you noticed in the meeting that made your stomach go tight. For me it was the contract. Two pages, and no line saying when it ends. I asked, and the owner said "oh, we don't really do that, it's a relationship, not a lease." He said it very nicely. I still did not sign it, and then I spent two weeks wondering if I had just thrown away my one chance 🙃 So tell me yours. The thing they said, or the thing that was missing from the paper. Partly because I want to know I was right to walk, and partly because I have another meeting in two weeks and I would like to know what to watch for 😅

Sitting in my studio with a small interior I've been working on since the start of the month, a woman at a table with morning light coming from a window behind her left shoulder. The whole thing is nearly done. The walls are right, the cloth on the table is right, the light reads the way I wanted it to. And her hand on the table is dead. It is the fourth time I've wiped it back and repainted it and each time it comes back a little more like a photograph of a hand and less like a hand. Here is the specific problem. I can build the form fine. Palm, knuckles, the taper of the fingers, all correct. What I can't find is the edge. The place where the light side meets the shadow side. I keep making it crisp because I know what the shape is, and a crisp edge says "I know what this is." I don't want her to know what it is. I want the light to have made it. One soft edge where the wrist turns into the shadow of the table, one lost edge where the fingers meet the cloth, and the whole thing would breathe. I know all this. I've taught it. And I still paint a hand like I'm describing it to a police sketch artist. I've been looking at Chardin all week, the little hands in the still lifes, the way he lets a knuckle just dissolve into the background and trusts you to finish it. It is a kind of confidence I don't have yet at this size. At a big scale I can be loose. Small and I get nervous and tidy. So I am going to let it dry and go at it once more with a bigger brush than it deserves. If it fails again I may paint her hand into her sleeve and call it a compositional choice. Not really. But it's been that kind of week.

Okay, I have to know, what's the strangest thing that happened to you during a gallery visit or meeting? Not the worst, necessarily, just... strange. I once had a gallery owner spend a full fifteen minutes telling me about her golden retriever's dietary restrictions before we even looked at the wall space. I thought maybe she was testing my patience or something. Turns out she just really wanted to talk about her dog. I still don't know if I got the meeting because she liked my work or because I nodded along about grain-free kibble. Your turn. Give me something that made you go "...okay then" in a gallery setting.

Working on this piece built around a found photograph from the 70s, this woman standing in a doorway, someone's aunt probably. I tore the paper around her and layered it onto a board with charcoal and acrylic. But there's this one hinge point where the photograph meets the torn paper and it just won't sit right. I keep adjusting the collage thinking the composition is off, then yesterday I realized the piece works fine everywhere except exactly where those two papers meet. The problem is the junction itself, not what's around it. Every fix I try makes it worse. I pulled a strip of paper off and now there's a gap, so I'm just staring at this torn edge like it's going to solve itself. Anyone else ever had a piece where one seam is the whole problem? Where you keep blaming the surrounding work and it turns out to be the one physical joint you chose?

In Mithila painting the border is not decoration, it is the frame that holds the whole story. We put the fine line work there, the little fish and the lotus petals, because the border is what keeps the main figure from wandering off the paper. I have been filling these borders since I was a child, forty years at least, and yesterday while teaching one of the girls I finally saw something. I always begin the border from the top left corner and work my way around. My mother did the same, and her mother. But yesterday the girl asked me, why you start at the corner, and I could not give her a proper answer. I sat with it and I realised the corner is where the two lines meet and it is the weakest place. The pigment pools there, the line gets thick, and the whole border looks clumsy right where the eye lands first. My grandmother would have known this. She probably started somewhere else on purpose and I never thought to ask her. So now I am trying to begin from the middle of one side and work out to the corners, so the meeting place is not the beginning and not the end but somewhere in between. It is a small change and it feels like betraying my own hand. But the border is coming out cleaner. Has anyone else found a habit they were taught that they only questioned after years? And when you changed it, did the work improve or did it just feel wrong for a long time?

There's a heron block on the bench since last week and I'm after getting to the bit nobody warns you about, which is the part where the legs meet the body. Sounds simple. It is not. Get it wrong and you've got a bird standing in a bucket. Anyroad, I carved it, pulled a proof, and the whole thing reads like a heron in wellingtons for the winter. The shoulders are too heavy where I tried to be clever with the shading and now he looks like he's been at the spuds all his life. The thing is, I know what's wrong and I know roughly how to fix it, and I still sat looking at it for two hours with a mug of tea gone cold instead of just doing it. Eventually the small lad came in looking for his crayons, saw it, and said "he's fierce fat isn't he." Out of the mouths. He's not wrong either. So it's back to the block tomorrow, take the shoulders down and stop being precious about it. That's the whole job really, being willing to cut away the bit you were pleased with. Put it up on the wall for the night so I don't have to look at him anymore. The dog's not a bit impressed either.

Mine: the owner spent the whole meeting talking to my friend instead of me. I was standing right there holding my portfolio. Ten minutes of him asking her what she did. She's a nurse. I stayed twenty minutes longer than I should have because I didn't want to be rude. What's the thing that told you this was never going to work, and did you leave right then or sit through it like I did?

Widow came to the shop in March. Wanted a headstone for her husband, granite, 4 foot upright, rough face with a polished panel. She had the plot number and a drawing her grandson did of the lettering. I quoted 4,800. Material was 1,400, sandblast and polish another 900, setting with the monument company 600. That leaves 1,900 for what was eleven weeks of carving and four trips to the cemetery to check the base. I knew the number was wrong when I said it. I said it anyway. What I keep turning over is why. She asked twice if that included the setting. I said yes both times. I've been doing this thirty years and I still price grief like it's a favor I'm doing, and then I resent the stone for three months. The gallon of coffee I drink at the bench costs more than my hourly on that job. I did the math after, out of spite, and it came to 14 an hour. Raised my minimum on new commissions to 9,000 in June. First two callers hung up. Number three signed, and I'm carving it now, and the difference in how I feel holding the chisel is not small. I don't have a clean lesson here. Just that I set that price in the first five minutes of the meeting, before I'd even heard the lettering, and I've never once gotten a number right that fast.