Search

Had a little handheld radio on the shelf by my worktable for years. Played NPR or whatever local station came in clear. It died three weeks ago and I just never replaced it. Didn't even realize until today that I've been working in silence the whole time. And the work's been better. Honestly a little jarring to admit that. I thought the noise was helping me concentrate but apparently it was just company. Now I'm wondering what else I've got in here that I think I need and actually don't. The room is really quiet now though. My neighbor two units over is a woodworker and I can hear his saw through the wall sometimes. That's probably enough.

used to always have something on, podcasts, playlists, the same few albums on rotation. then about six months ago i just stopped. didn't plan it. one day i realized i'd been working in silence for a week straight. at first i thought something was wrong with me. like i couldn't focus. but turns out i was just hearing the work for the first time. the paper moving. the brush clicking against the jar. my own breathing. now when i try to put something on it feels like someone talking over a conversation i was already having. weird how long it took me to notice.

I keep meaning to bring a speaker in and I keep not doing it. So it's the little grey radio, antenna snapped off years ago, and it sits on the windowsill where it gets exactly one station if the window is open a crack and none if it isn't. Right now it's a mattress warehouse jingle, and I've heard it so many times that I've started humming it while I mix washes, which is a new low. The thing is I can't work in silence. Tried it. Spent a whole afternoon staring at a half-finished panel of my mother's old kitchen wallpaper and the silence got so loud I could hear the radiator tick. Put the radio back on and got three hours in. My friend June works with headphones and full albums and no interruptions, very disciplined, and I've decided I don't want that. I want the mattress jingle and the traffic report and the local guy who does the obituaries on Sundays. It's company. Somebody's in the room. Anyway. The panel is still ugly but it's less ugly with noise.

Somewhere in the last year the old tuner in the studio stopped finding anything but Czech Radio Vltava, and at first this annoyed me because I like to choose. Now I don't touch it. It comes on when I unlock the door, goes off when I leave, and the whole day has a soundtrack of string quartets and a woman reading poetry I half understand because I am usually not listening. What I notice: the work goes better on the days I don't touch the dial. Not because of the music. Because the dial is one less decision, and I make enough of those dragging a rusted gate hinge across the floor to see if it belongs in the corner or by the window. I have a friend who works in total silence. He says the radio is noise. I think he is wrong but I would not argue it with him, he is bigger than me. Anyway. The station plays a weather report for farmers at ten past six and I have started planning my day around it, which is a ridiculous thing for a man who has not touched soil since 1989 to do. But the man on the radio sounds like he knows something I don't, and I trust him more than the gallery. That's the whole post, really.

I had a gallery keep my pieces for nine months once. Nine. Every couple weeks a "we're so close, we love this work" email, then radio silence. I finally asked for everything back and they acted offended, like I was the unreasonable one. I still don't know if it was real interest or just them collecting work for the wall space. What's the longest a gallery has kept you dangling? And how did you finally pull the plug, or did you?

Small thing but it's thrown me. The little Roberts radio in the studio, the one with the aerial held on with a strip of gaffer, finally gave up after about fifteen years. Took it apart, cleaned the dial, nothing. So it's just me and the noise of the house now. And I've discovered the washing machine has a rhythm to it. Not a nice one either. It's a sort of thunk-thunk-thunk-whirr that sets up a tempo I did not ask for, and I've caught myself carving to it. Small controlled cuts, then a long pause at the whirr. Took me two days to cop that my hand was following a spin cycle. The hare's ear I'm working on is now in 4/4 whether it wants to be or not. I'm not one for the headphones thing either, tried it, the earphones kept pulling the block sideways when I leaned over. So I'm left with options. Talk radio in the morning, which is a mistake because I end up arguing with it and losing my line. Or one of the kids' story tapes on the little speaker, which honestly is winning at the moment, there's a version of the Children of Lir on it that's grand to work to. Pointless question I know, but I'm genuinely curious what's on in other people's rooms when the work is happening. Music, silence, the telly through the wall, the dog snoring. I've a feeling the answer says a lot about the person. Mine currently says: I am carving a hare to the beat of a load of whites.

Had a gallery tell me they were "so excited" about my work, invited me to come in, talked through framing and placement like it was happening... then went silent for eight months. I emailed four times, got one "let's circle back" and then nothing. Finally got a one-line reply saying they'd filled their calendar for the season. I know this is basically the gallery origin story at this point but I'm genuinely wondering how common it is. Did you ever chase one that turned out to be a total waste of your time? Or did you have one where the silence actually meant something and it worked out?

I emailed for months and got nothing but silence or the polite we'll keep you in mind. Then one afternoon I just walked into a small gallery here in Kraków with a folder of prints and asked if anyone had ten minutes to look. The owner was so surprised she actually laughed at me, but she looked. Nothing came of it in the end, but it was the only real conversation I ever got. So I'm wondering now, who here emails and who just walks in? And for those who did walk in, did it ever actually lead anywhere or was it always just a nice chat that went nowhere? I keep thinking I should try it again but I'm not sure I have the nerve a second time 🙂

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"

You get the yes. The email that says they love the work, let's talk, come in. Then silence. You follow up, they say they're putting together the programme. Then more silence. This happened to me twice. First time I assumed I'd done something wrong. Second time I realised some galleries just say yes to keep you warm while they figure out what they actually want. I'm curious how common this is. Did you ever get a yes that just evaporated? And at what point do you write it off and move on?

gallery reached out to me a while back, said they loved the work, wanted to "figure something out." then radio silence for months. i emailed twice, got nothing. finally i just let it die and moved on. six months later they pop back up like nothing happened. i'm still a little embarrassed i let it go that long. where's the line for you, how many months of ghosting before you write it off? or do you always chase?

I finally said a real number out loud today. 40x50 oil, six weeks of work, and I quoted $1,800. The woman went quiet for like four seconds and I swear I almost said "or whatever you want" just to make the silence stop. The thing is $1,800 is not even good money. Tube of good cadmium is $60 now. I've been buying Utrecht because the real stuff makes me flinch. Add up the panels, the medium, the fact that I ruined two canvases before this one worked at all, and I'm probably at $9 an hour. Maybe less. Somebody in here said numbers without the shame and I keep coming back to that because the shame part is the whole problem. I spent years charging $400 for things this size because I was scared of the face people make. Then a painter I half know told me she doesn't negotiate, full stop, and I wanted to be her so badly it made me angry. I don't know if she said yes yet. I keep refreshing my phone like a teenager. Anyway the number went up. Not sorry. Terrified, but not sorry.

i raised my prices in march. 450 to 850 on the mid size canvases, the 60x80 ones. sold one in nine days to a guy who runs a bike shop, paid full, didn't haggle, thanked me for my time. i thought ok. this is the part where it clicks. raised again in june to 1400 on the same size. crickets. not "too expensive" crickets, just silence. three inquiries since then that all went "love your work!! do you have anything smaller?" which i now understand is code for a different number entirely. what's annoying is i know the advice is right. the 850 sale proved there's demand above where i was. but i can't tell if 1400 is a real ceiling or if i just killed the discovery thing by fiddling with it. i'm not consistent, i post when i finish something, sometimes twice a week sometimes twice a month. so the raise landed on a feed that already forgets i exist between paintings. the other theory, and i hate this one, is that 850 was the "i can justify this on a card" number and 1400 is the "this needs a conversation with my partner" number. completely different buyer, not just a different price. anyway i'm painting the big one for the show in october and telling myself the answer lives in there. it does not live in there. it lives in a spreadsheet i refuse to open.

I finally priced a new commission the honest way, hour by hour, and it came out to €9.80 an hour before materials. I'm 44, I've been doing this for almost twenty years, and I'm still making less than the person who serves me coffee. That number sat there on the page and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The problem is I price the whole piece, not my time. A seated figure, half-length, oil on linen, maybe 55x46. I know exactly what it takes because I've done it a hundred times. But when I think what the client will reasonably pay for that size, my brain gives me a figure and then I divide by the weeks and suddenly I'm ashamed of myself. I raised it anyway, this time. Charged what the work actually costs. The client paused on the phone, that long silence that means I finally said a number too high, and I almost folded on the spot. Then she said fine, let's go. So now I'm terrified I've priced myself out of the next three, and quietly furious that I ever treated that fear as reasonable.

I took the prices off my shop page a few months ago. Not as a strategy, I just got tired of feeling like I was shouting numbers at people before they'd even seen the work properly. I put "please enquire" and my email. I expected silence. Instead I get these long emails now. People describing where they'd hang it, what the light is like in their kitchen at certain hours, which beach it reminds them of. Some don't buy. Some buy after three or four emails. The buying feels different when it happens, less transactional, more like they've already lived with the piece a while. The downside is real. Some people disappear the second they hear the number. I lost a sale this morning that way, a woman who'd written me three lovely messages, then just "oh, that's more than I thought" and gone. And I can't tell if I'm filtering for the right people or just making it harder for everyone. Not a tip. Just a strange thing I'm in the middle of.

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 🙂

This is probably a niche one but has anyone had a gallery show interest, say all the right things, and then just... go quiet? Not a no, not a contract, just silence. I had one earlier this year. Owner loved the work, talked about a slot in autumn, asked me to send more photos. I sent them. And then nothing. I followed up once, politely, and nothing again. I still don't know if I did something wrong or they just got busy or what. It honestly stuck in my head more than any straight rejection would have. At least a no you can file away. Anyone else? And did you chase it or let it go?

Okay I need to know if this is just me or if this is normal because I'm still kind of reeling from it haha. So I reached out to this gallery back in like... April? Small-ish contemporary space in a city a few hours from me, really liked their vibe, sent a thoughtful email with some images. Heard nothing. Cool, whatever, I figured it was a no and moved on. Then in August I get this email from them like "hey! we'd love to see more of your work, are you free to chat next week?" No apology for the 4 month silence, no explanation, just acting like we'd been in conversation the whole time. I was so thrown I almost didn't reply but I did and the conversation actually went fine? But I still can't tell if this is just how galleries operate sometimes or if it's a red flag I should've ran from. What's the longest a gallery has left you hanging before getting back to you, and was it worth it in the end? Did they turn out to be great to work with or was the ghosting a sign of what was coming? I need stories so I know whether to feel good about this or not lol.

So I've been full-time for eight months now which means I've been doing all the "okay so I guess I have to market myself" stuff that nobody prepares you for in art school lol. And the thing that actually worked, the thing that got me my first real gallery relationship, was the most humiliating process ever. I spent a weekend sending 40 cold emails. Like, proper ones, with images and links and a real bio. And I got one reply. ONE. And honestly for like two days I was so embarrassed I almost didn't open it because I assumed it was a no too. But it was a yes. A small gallery in a city I'd never been to, but they liked my work and wanted to talk. That one yes turned into a group show, which turned into two commission requests from people who saw the show, which turned into enough money to pay rent for three months without panic-ordering takeout. Anyway I'm not saying cold emailing is the secret sauce, mostly it's just brutal lol. But I think sometimes we hear about the one reply and not the 39 silences. So here's my question I guess: what's the thing you tried that felt stupid or embarrassing or like it wasn't working, and then it kind of... did?

A man I've sold three paintings to over the years, nice enough, serious collection, comes to the studio, emails me last month. He wants two new pieces, both around 80x60cm. He asks if I can "do something" on the price since he's taking two at once. I said no. Politely but directly. I explained that my price is the price because of what goes into it, not because I'm guessing what the market will bear. Buying two doesn't make the painting easier to paint. He wrote back the same day, a bit cool, said he understood. I haven't heard from him since. Maybe I lost a client, maybe he's just busy. What I keep thinking about is how uncomfortable that moment was, the feeling that I was being rude by not playing the game. In France especially, people negotiate on everything. But I don't want my work to be something you bargain over like a carpet in a souk. The price says what the work is. If I bend, I'm saying it wasn't really that price to begin with. Still. The silence makes you wonder.