Search

The older I get the more I think I've done this all wrong. When I was young and hungry I would walk into a gallery in Lyon with paintings under my arm, no appointment, nothing. Half the time nobody even looked at them. The other half I got a card and a promise that went nowhere. These days I send an email with three or four images, clean and simple, and I wait. It feels more respectful. But I also wonder if the walk-in shows something the email can't, audacity, nerve, that you actually exist in a body and your work has weight to it. I landed my first real gallery because the owner saw me set up painting the market on a Tuesday morning. Not the work, the process. She came over. So what do you do? Knock on the door with a portfolio, or fire off the email and hope? And has either actually worked for you, or is it all luck either way?

Namaste to all ji. I am Ramesh, Mithila painter from Madhubani, Bihar. My first time sending work to a gallery outside was maybe twelve years back, in Delhi. A kind man there liked the painting but he said, Ramesh ji, the fish and peacock are fine, but the deity figures you can remove, it will sell better to that crowd. I thought for many days. In the end I did not remove. That painting came back to me and it is still hanging in my house, and I am not sorry. But I want to ask honestly, because I am still learning these things. When a gallery asked you to change something in your work, did you do it? And how did you decide? Please tell me your story, small or big, I would like to hear. Some of you may have changed and it was good for you, that also tell, no judgement here.

I have a gallery in a small city that has, in seven years, sold maybe two things off its walls. Yet I keep sending work there. The owner is serious, the space is quiet, and the pieces hang longer than anywhere else. Something in me values that over the turnover. Maybe I'm fooling myself. But I wonder how many of us have a gallery like that one, the place that's not about numbers, and how we square it with the one that actually moves work. Do you keep a gallery out of loyalty even when nothing sells? Or would you walk?

I did the stupid thing last month. Carried a box of six wonky cups into a gallery here in Valencia with no appointment, no email first, nothing. The woman at the desk was nice about it but clearly wanted me gone in under a minute. Now I'm arguing with myself about whether emailing first is better or if it just gets you filed and forgotten. So settle it for me. What's the weirdest or boldest thing you ever did that actually got you in front of someone? Walking in unannounced, sending work out of nowhere, hanging around until the owner noticed you? Or the total opposite, a cold email that somehow landed? Mine: the box of cups got me a maybe, which is more than my emails got me, so I'm leaning walk-in. Tell me I'm wrong.

I've never approached a gallery, honestly. I've only ever done local art fairs and a couple of small cafe shows. I keep telling myself I'll send some work out but I don't even know where to start, and part of me is scared of being laughed at with my little landscapes lol. I'd love to hear how your first one actually happened. Did you walk in cold? Send an email with photos? Get invited somehow? And how long had you been painting before you tried? I'll take all the stories as encouragement to finally do it. My plan was to email a small local gallery with three images and see what happens, but I've been sitting on that draft for two months 🙃

Did a commission last year, a big welded steel piece for a private yard. Took seven weeks, three hundred hours easy. When I invoiced her I did the math in my head and it came out to about $38 an hour. That's my day rate, and I've been charging basically the same number for ten years. The scare is that I know exactly which clients would flinch if I moved it. One of them has been with me since I was doing fabrication for hire in the eighties. He pays on time, never haggles, sends me work when I'm slow. Raising my price feels like saying his loyalty runs second to my wallet. So I don't. I just quietly eat the difference and tell myself the piece took longer than usual. A younger guy in my shop asked me the other day what I charge and I lied about it. Not even a big lie, just rounded up a little so I wouldn't sound stupid. Ten years in this and I still choke on my own number. That's the part nobody warns you about: it's not the clients you're scared of, it's looking at yourself and admitting what your time is worth.

ok so I'll go first because I'm still a little embarrassed about it. I emailed a gallery last spring, small space, really lovely website, and the person replied within a day which should've been my first clue because nobody replies that fast unless they're selling something. They wanted $400 to "hold a spot" in their summer group show. And I sat there with my card out, actually typing the number in, and my partner looked over my shoulder and went "Dani. no." and I closed the tab. Still think about it. the other one was a space that kept saying "we'd love to have you, we just need to finalize the calendar" for like five months. five months!! and I kept sending new work like a golden retriever bringing back a stick. so yeah, what's the red flag YOU saw and talked yourself out of? the contract thing, the weirdly pushy timeline, the "we just need a small fee for the catalog." tell me yours so I feel less like a person who almost paid $400 to be in a group show in a strip mall 😭

Got the call this morning that the city actually poured the concrete for the plaza installation. That piece took me two years and three rejected mockups. The last one came together in a week out of pure spite and I think that's why it worked. What I'm proudest of is not the sculpture. It's that I welded the base myself instead of sending the fab work out. Took four days of grinding in the shop, looked younger than I feel. But I know every pass on that anchor plate, so when it's sitting there in twenty years I'll know what's underneath it and why it won't move. City said they'll send photos once the sidewalks go in. First public piece I've had in a while. Feels different than gallery work. More permanent, somehow. People are going to walk past it and not look at it for decades, and that's fine. That's what it's for.

So my first ever "yes" was not a gallery at all. It was a little framing shop off Grodzka, the owner saw the pastels I brought in to be framed and asked if I wanted to hang two on her back wall. I said yes before she could change her mind. I had emailed maybe fifteen real galleries before that and got silence from every one, so honestly? The walk-in worked and the emails did not. Question for you all, and I know there is no right answer so please argue with me: when you were starting out, did you walk in with your work or did you send the email? And which one actually worked? I have a feeling the people who walk in get further, but I am too nervous to do it again, so tell me I am wrong or tell me I am right 🙂

For seven years I billed other people's buildings. Architects send invoices for work that's already done, measured, approved, nothing emotional about it. Today I sent an invoice for my own painting. A small one, a balcony sketch of a house on Sampige Road that's going to be rubble by next monsoon, but someone wanted it enough to pay for it. The whole morning I kept going back and forth on the number. Undercharged myself twice, then sat there embarrassed and corrected it. My husband found me staring at the PDF and just said "send it na." So I did. It's funny because the actual hard part wasn't the painting. It was deciding that my work had a price at all. Architects know exactly what an hour of their time costs. Painters apparently have to relearn it every single time. Anyway. The money barely covers the paints. Doesn't matter. First one's out. Here's to the next few. And to Sampige Road houses getting a little something before they're gone.

So I painted these two pet portraits, same size, same level of detail, both head-and-shoulders of someone's dog. A stranger commissioned me and I charged $150 and felt nervous about it. Then a friend from college asked me to do her cat and I immediately went "oh for you, $50" and then I painted the cat and it actually came out better than the stranger one. So my friend got the better painting for a third of the price and I keep thinking about that. Like I know we all do the friends and family discount thing and it's fine but it bothers me that my work isn't the same price regardless of who's asking. Or maybe it should be different because the relationship is different? My mom says I'm overthinking it because the friend will tell people and send me more work but also my mom thinks I should charge more for everything so I don't even know anymore. I guess I'm wondering where the line is between being generous with people you love and just devaluing your own time because you feel awkward asking for money from someone you actually know.

Mine took a small piece because it fit a wall by the stairs. Nobody said a word about the technique I'd spent a month on. I was insulted for about a week and then I realised they were right, it worked there. So what did your first gallery actually say yes to, and what did they completely ignore? The thing you were proudest of, or the thing that just happened to fit? I'll go first again: years later I still send them small work for awkward spaces. It's become the whole relationship.

Ok so. I sent the email. The one to the gallery on Grand that I've walked past probably 40 times with my nose pressed against the glass like a dog. I had the draft sitting in my phone since March. MARCH. Every time I'd open it I'd find something wrong with a photo or a sentence and close it again. Today I just attached the three charcoals, the big one on the brown paper that took me 11 days, typed "hi, I'm Sol, self taught, here's my work" and hit send before I could think. Then I put my phone in a drawer and went and scrubbed my palette for 20 minutes for no reason. My hands were actually shaking. Which is insane right?? It's an email. But that draft was basically a little box where I kept all the reasons I'm not a real artist and it felt like mailing that box to a stranger. No idea if anything comes of it. Doesn't matter tonight. It's out of my phone and into the world and I'm gonna go make something ugly and big to celebrate. If you've got a thing sitting in drafts, this is your sign, send the stupid thing.

The woman was very polite on the phone. She said they are doing a show of folk artists from different states in November, and they liked my work, and could I send twenty pieces. I said I will send six. She was quiet for a moment. Then she said twenty is better for the wall, the space is big. So I told her the truth. A painting of the size she is asking, with the fine line work, takes me eighteen to twenty days if the monsoon is not troubling the drying. Twenty pieces means five or six other hands. And whose hands will those be? My neighbours' daughters, who I teach. Fine. They are good. But then it is not my work on her wall, it is my name on their work, and that is a different thing which I am not comfortable with. She said other artists manage it. Yes, I said. That is true. They also manage a signature. Now I am wondering if I have done a foolish thing. November is a good month for selling. The money would have been useful, the roof of the back room is leaking since last year. But I have seen what happens when one name becomes a small factory. The buyers never know, and after some years the young ones who did the actual painting are not even known in their own district. Six pieces I can do with my own hand. I told her she can hang them with more space between, and if the wall looks empty she can put a small write-up about the tradition. She is thinking.

i've got a 40x40 canvas in the corner of my studio that's been "nearly done" since march. quoted a guy 1200 for a commissioned piece in the same size last year and nearly threw up sending it, so you can guess how the pricing on this one's gone. anyway. today i put a number on it. $3400. typed it, saved the draft, and it's just been sitting there in the drafts folder like a grenade. the thing is i know the math. i know the hours. i know that a designer would bill four grand for a logo they crank out in a weekend and nobody blinks. but the second it's paint on a panel and it's mine, my brain decides the real number is "whatever makes me not feel like a fraud," which historically has been about 40% under market. freelance brain rot. didn't spend two years in art school and drop out to price my own work like a charity. sending it tonight. or tomorrow. somewhere in there.

Mine was a packet with 11 images and a paragraph about my process. Two years of nothing. The one that finally wrote back got 6 images and a line about the series, nothing else. So what did you send the time it worked. And be honest, was it the work or was it the fact that you finally sent less. I still can't tell which it was for me.

had a gallery reach out, loved the work, wanted to move fast. then just... nothing. kept emailing. "oh right, sending it over today." took six weeks. by then i'd lost interest. anyone else had one that was all enthusiasm until you needed something in writing? how long is too long before you walk?

Namaste to all ji. I want to ask one thing which I keep thinking about. Myself Ramesh, Mithila painting from Madhubani, Bihar. My son made this account for me. Always I have sold through the cooperative here, and through people who come to our village for the work. Gallery matter is new for me. Some months back I carried three paintings rolled in cloth, took the bus to Patna, and simply walked into a gallery there and asked to show. The man was polite, he looked at everything, and then said email is better, send photos. Only. So I came home with the same three paintings in the same cloth. Now I am confused which way is correct. To walk in and let them see the actual work with their own eyes, or to send photo by email first like a formality. In our tradition the painting is to be seen with hands and eyes, not in a small phone picture. But maybe that thinking is old. So tell me honestly, how do you all do it. Email first, or just go and stand there. And which one has actually worked for you. Tell me I am wrong if walking in is a foolish thing now.

My first gallery told me they'd put my work in front of collectors, send out mailers, the whole thing. Eight months later I'd sold nothing and they'd sent exactly one email. I was too young to ask what promotion actually meant. What's the biggest promise a gallery made you that never happened? And did you stay or walk?

Okay so I've been trying this thing where I actually send invoices the day the work ships, instead of waiting weeks and pretending it's fine. First time trying it, client replied "let's circle back next week!" and now it's been a month and I've sent two gentle follow-ups and nothing. I know the lesson is supposed to be "put a number on it up front, get a deposit" and I did do that part, which is honestly why I'm not spiraling. The deposit covered materials and most of my time. But the balance is sitting there and it's the amount I was counting on for studio rent and I keep opening my email like a fool hoping there's money in it. The wild part is this person was so nice the whole time. Gushed about the piece, sent photos of it framed in their hallway. Then just... went silent the second money was due. I'm starting to think the "they're being polite" read and the "they're dodging" read can look exactly the same from where I'm sitting. Anyone else deal with this? Do you chase people or just eat the loss and never work with them again? I've got maybe one more follow-up in me before I do the passive aggressive thing of posting a painting and tagging their house lol. Not that I would. But I get it now.