Search

I find myself drawn to the silence more than ever lately. Trying to make something of the small gaps, the places where the usual marketing chatter just… isn't. It's not about ignoring the noise, but about finding the signal in the quiet. My own practice is very much about this – using found paper, old book pages, and leaving a lot of empty space. It’s about what’s not there as much as what is. Wondering if anyone else finds value in intentionally creating that space online, away from the constant performance.

I did that last year. Small room in a collective space downtown, knew the people running it had zero budget and the foot traffic was basically the other artists. The work didn't sell. I don't regret it though, the hang was respectful and they treated the work properly. I keep going back and forth on whether that was naive or just... fine. Part of me thinks a quiet room with the right person handling the work is worth more than a bad gallery that moves pieces. Anyone else take shows knowing they'll be a financial wash? Do you ever consider that a win?

Got burned once early on. Gallery had good photos online, good reputation on paper. Signed, shipped work, then visited in person for the opening and half the space was a storage room they rented out. My pieces were hung in a hallway. Never made that mistake again. Now I won't sign anything without seeing the actual walls. Lost two promising deals over it and I don't care. If they won't let you look at where your work is going to live, that tells you something. Am I being too rigid here or do you all do the same?

I ask because I got the same question twice this week and I still don't have a good answer. For a real gallery, one that pays for the crates and the lighting and actually talks to people, I will go to 30. Above that I start to get stupid about it, even when the math works. My first proper gallery took half and I said yes without blinking, because in 1994 I would have said yes to anything with a door and a wall. Now I have a number, and the number is 30, and I am aware it is a superstition as much as a business decision. So, what is yours. Not the principled answer you give at a panel. The actual one, the moment in the email where you either say yes or start writing the polite refusal. And has anyone walked away because of it, or is it always you who folds.

six months of emails. "we love the direction." "let's revisit after the summer show." meanwhile my inbox stayed quiet and my work sat in my studio getting dusty. then last week they post the lineup for the fall exhibition. same slot they'd been hinting at for me. filled with someone whose whole thing is neon resin pours that all look like the same puddle. i'm not even mad at the other artist. i'm mad at myself for treating "maybe" like a yes for half a year. should've kept pushing my own thing instead of holding my breath for them. everyone says don't wait for permission. i believed it until an actual door cracked open and i stood there politely waiting for it to open the rest of the way. that's the part that stings. anyway. the market crowd keeps buying, so it's not like the work's dead. just wondering how many "maybes" i let keep me small.

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.

My first gallery offer came when I was about 30. New space, young owner, wanted to show my welded steel pieces. I said no. The terms were lousy, the space was a dump, and I didn't trust the guy. Took another four years before I showed anywhere. Everybody talks about how hard it is to get in the door. Nobody talks about saying no once the door opens. I've seen people sign with the first place that smiles at them and regret it for years. Anyone else turned one down? Or signed with a bad one just to get in and paid for it after?

I'll go first and it's not flattering. A small space in a city I won't name asked me for a "contribution to the printing costs" of the show. Not framing, not shipping. Printing costs. Of my own work. I paid it, because the space had a name I could put on a CV and I was twenty-nine and hungry to look serious. The show was fine. The invoice is the thing I remember. What did you talk yourself into? The contract with the vague clause, the "we usually handle sales ourselves," the director who never answered one email until the week they needed something. I'm collecting red flags I should have caught earlier, and I'd rather hear yours than pretend I've got better instincts now.

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 😭

ok so this is going to sound small but I just put down a deposit on a shared studio space and the whole thing came out of my "actual painting sales" money and not my savings or the little bit my partner quietly covers when I'm short. Which means for the first time since I quit the café eight months ago, the work paid for a thing the work needs. the space is tiny, like a converted closet in a building full of woodworkers down on the east side, and it smells like sawdust and turpentine which honestly is the best smell on earth. there's a skylight. A SKYLIGHT. I've been painting the same window in my apartment for a year and a half because it's the only decent light I have and now I get actual north light for six months. anyway I sat in my car after signing the papers and cried a little bit which is embarrassing to type out but there it is. my mom called me while I was still in the parking lot and I couldn't get the words out right so I just said "I got the closet" and she started crying too. we're a family of criers, it's a whole thing. the terrifying part is now I have a monthly bill I didn't have last week. but the good terrifying. I think. ask me in march haha

So my first real gallery yes came from a space that, I'm fairly sure, had never shown a print in its life. There was a plate mark on one of my pieces and the director asked, genuinely curious, why I'd "damaged the paper there." I explained intaglio for maybe ten minutes. He nodded a lot. I still said yes. The show was fine, the work was fine, but what I remember is that the person selling my multiples could not explain how a multiple works to a buyer. Which for my work specifically is a bit of a problem, since the whole point is the reproduction. So I want to know: how much did the first gallery that took you on actually understand your medium? Did they get it, did you have to teach them, or did you decide it didn't matter as long as they had wall space and a mailing list? I still go back and forth about which of those is the honest answer.

Painted a still life tonight at the kitchen table after the kids went down. Same table we ate spaghetti at two hours earlier. I wiped it down, laid out the drop cloth, and there's still a smear of tomato sauce on the corner of my reference photo that I just decided to live with. I used to feel bad about not having a real studio space. Read all these posts about people's dedicated rooms with north light and proper easels and I'd get all wistful. But honestly the kitchen table works. The light is awful. The cat walks across my palette at least twice a session. My 8 year old stuck a drawing of a dinosaur to the easel I can't even use because there's no room for it. But it's the only uninterrupted hour I get and I'll take it. Finished a decent little pear study tonight, better than my last one. That's the whole win. Packed it up and now I'm eating leftover spaghetti over the sink like a civilized person. Who else is painting on a dining room table or a folding tray or wherever they can grab space?

So here's something I've been chewing on. I had a gallery reach out, small, reputable, good space, and they were interested in a few pieces for a group show. But then came the feedback. "Can you make this a bit warmer?" "The composition on this one feels crowded." "Maybe try a larger format." And I sat there thinking, is this normal curation or am I being moulded into something I didn't sign up for? Because on one hand, they know their space and their buyers. On the other hand, these are my paintings, you know? I already finished them. I ended up doing some of what they asked and standing firm on others. Mixed feelings about it still. Have any of you had a gallery ask for changes before accepting work? Did you do it, negotiate, or just say sorry and move on? I want to know where the line is.

Three years I've been collecting for this installation. Forty-one doors, most of them from a demolished panel building in Ostrava, the kind with the laminate peeling off in sheets. I measured the space in September with my own tape and wrote the numbers in the notebook. Then somebody in the office "transferred the data" and now it's 60 centimeters shorter on the long wall. 60 centimeters. Nothing, you say. Except the whole thing hinges on the doors standing at exact intervals and the last one ending where you can just barely not touch it. Change the wall, change the rhythm, change the entire sentence the room is saying. I could cut one door. I could shuffle. Both are wrong. I spent today in the space with a folding rule, moving two doors back and forth like an idiot, and I have to say I started laughing somewhere around hour four. Twenty-eight years of this and the enemy is still a number in a spreadsheet typed by someone who was probably eating lunch. Under communism we had different problems but at least nobody could email a room and make it smaller. Anyway. Tomorrow I measure it myself again, in the morning, with coffee, and I will not be diplomatic about it.

I do a lot of walk-ins before I ever email. There was one place in the north of Greece, gorgeous space, good light, and I knew in about ten minutes I'd never want my work there. Not because of anything they said. It was the way they talked about their artists. "My painter," "my sculptor," like they owned them. Every artist was a possession. I thanked them and left. But I've also walked into a scruffy little basement space and felt right at home instantly. You can't always tell from the outside. What's the fastest you've ever ruled a gallery out, and what was the tell? Or the opposite, the one that looked wrong on paper and turned out to be exactly right?

Alright here's one. Early days for me, maybe ten years ago, I got into a group show in Dublin. Nice enough space, good opening crowd. I sold a decent-sized linocut, one of the ones I was proud of. Gallery took 50%. Which, fine, that's the game. But they didn't frame it, didn't market it, didn't even have a price list unless you asked. I basically handed them a print and they handed me half of what it sold for. I walked out of there with less than I'd sell it for off my own table at the Saturday market. I've been in enough spaces since to know what a fair split looks like and what a service is worth. But that one still sticks in my craw. 50% for a wall and a glass of cheap wine. What's the worst split or the emptiest promise you've ever taken from a gallery? The one where you looked at the cheque and thought I did more work than you did.

So I had a watercolor in a group show at this small gallery downtown, nice space, good foot traffic, I was genuinely excited to be in it. It sold opening night, which felt amazing for about ten minutes until I did the math on my take-home. They took 50%. Half. And I get it, they have overhead, they promoted the show, they poured the wine, whatever. But I walked away with $175 on a $350 piece and I spent差不多 two weeks on it. That's like... $12 an hour if I'm being generous to myself. And I had to frame it myself too. I texted my old professor from school and she was like "yeah 50% is standard for emerging artists in that kind of space" which made me feel both better and worse somehow?? Like oh great so this IS the deal, I'm just supposed to accept that half my labor disappears because someone else has a storefront. I don't know. I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, the sale itself was validating. But I keep thinking about how many more hours I'd have to work just to make rent off that kind of split. My partner was like "well now you have a gallery relationship" and I'm like ok cool but the relationship doesn't pay for my gouache tubes lol. Anyway. For those of you who've been doing this longer, do you just build the commission into your pricing from the start? Do you negotiate? Or is 50% just the price of entry and I need to shut up about it?

I still remember mine. Berlin, maybe ten years ago. A small space I'd been following for months, I sent a proper portfolio, real prints in hand, even went in person. The gallerist looked at my etchings maybe ten seconds and said "this is very academic" in a way that was clearly not a compliment. I was crushed for weeks. But honestly? That rejection made me rethink everything about how I presented the work. Not the work itself, I kept that, but I stopped sending this heavy theoretical text with every submission, stopped trying to sound like I belonged in a catalogue before anyone had seen a single print. Next space I approached I just showed the images and talked like a person. They took me on that summer. So now I wonder: is everyone's worst rejection the thing that actually fixed their approach? Or did some of you get your break in spite of never having that humbling moment? What did your first no actually change for you?

The big assembled room I showed last spring in Brno, went back into the storage space yesterday to start pulling it apart for the piece that cycles out of it, and stood there ten minutes with my hands in my pockets. The far wall, the one I was proudest of when we hung it, is dead. It was the wall with the radiators, sixty-odd of them in a grid, all reclaimed, all painted slightly different whites. I thought the repetition did the work. It does nothing. It's a wallpaper. There's no friction in it. The other three walls, the junk and the wire and the bent frames, they have arguments going. The radiator wall just sits there agreeing with itself. The piece is going to a bigger space in the autumn so I could rebuild it anyway, but that's not why it bothers me. It bothers me that I couldn't see it a year ago. I needed twelve months of distance to notice the wall was only answering a question nobody asked. Anyone else ever walked back into something they shipped and found the part they loved worst was the part that made the whole thing work, or is it just me who defends the wrong corner for a year?

Okay so I've been trying to figure out this whole "get your art in front of people who actually buy it" thing instead of just posting into the void and hoping. I kept reading that you're supposed to DM interior designers and stylists but nobody ever says what you're actually supposed to SAY to them?? Like "hi I'm an artist" feels so flat. So last week I just went for it. I picked 12 designers who post the kind of spaces I could actually see my work in, warm, natural light, not super minimal. And I literally just said something like "hey! I'm a watercolor painter and I've been obsessed with how you use color in [specific project they posted]. Just wanted to share a few pieces I think would sit nicely in that kind of space, no pressure at all but thought I'd throw it out there" and attached 3 photos. 3 replied. One asked to set up a call. One said "send me your portfolio" and then went quiet lol. One just said "beautiful work, I'll keep you in mind" which could mean nothing but also could mean something?? I don't know. The thing is I felt so awkward doing it. Like I'm bothering them. But also nobody saw me do it so who cares right. I'm gonna do another batch this week and actually follow up with the ones who went quiet because my friend who's a freelancer said that's the part everybody skips. Anyway just wondering if anyone else has tried this and whether it actually turned into sales or just polite replies that go nowhere. I'll report back if that call turns into anything 🙃