Imagine what it would look like if a gallerist has just emailed you to schedule a studio visit. You’re excited about the opportunity to connect with them and to show them your work. The prospect of having an exhibition could mean getting press and selling your work. That would feel great to have your work seen by a larger audience, right?
But if the thought of them actually visiting sends you into a small panic, keep reading.
I’ve noticed that after the elated feeling dissipates, a second, less helpful thought comes up for most artists in this situation: fear. Feeling afraid that you don’t have enough work to show a gallerist can cause you to inadvertently sabotage yourself by pushing off that meeting or finding ways to seriously delay it and then never reschedule it. The same concept holds true for connecting with designers or hosting an open studio, too. It’s easy to be scared to commit to doing those actions or events that would create exhibitions or sales because you’re worried that you don’t have enough art already made.
The problem is that it feels like you need to have a ton of art made and available in your studio right now, before you reach out to a gallery, interior designer or before you sign up to do an open studio event. In reality, you don’t need a ton of new work before approaching these kinds of studio visits. This is for a few reasons.
First, you have time on your side. Many galleries do their programming 1-2 years in advance. So if they like your work and want to show it, you’ll likely have time to create more before an exhibition. And they’ll be happy to debut your newest body of work.
Look around your studio and take stock of what you can share with them. I bet you can probably make a little new art before the studio visit or have work-in-progress to show. This paired with the finished pieces and documentation that you have on hand will be enough to have the kind of conversation you need with a gallerist, curator or interior designer to decide if your work is right for them.
You also may feel like you’re “over” that last body of work that you made that’s kicking around your studio in a box somewhere. You can still feel good about sharing your previous work because while that body of art may be old to you but it’s still very new to your studio visitors. Remind yourself that your work can always be discovered and appreciated, no matter how long ago you made it.
As an antidote to this feeling, I encourage you to think about how energizing and exciting it felt when you were working on that body of work. That will help you to tap into that feeling and radiate it when you talk about it.
You don’t need to let that feeling that you don’t have enough art created stop you from reaching out to galleries, designers, submitting proposals or hosting an open studio. You need samples of your body of work and documentation of past work. If all of your newest work is in an exhibition right now, you can share photos of it.
The upshot is that you can set those opportunities in motion without having all the work made in advance of them. I know I’ve felt this way and so have many of my clients. It can be an almost an automatic reaction because we want to show our best and newest work that we’re most excited about. This feeling totally makes sense, right?
If you’ve ever felt like this, too, say “hello” in the comments to raise your hand in sharing this experience and in intimately understanding the artist’s brain when it comes to feeling like you don’t have enough work.
Cheers,
Kate