As a creative, I’m not sure which milestones are meant to be big events or celebrated, because the path we walk can be foggy as we travel it. Every creative mind is different and therefore has different ambitions or goals. I say this because I don’t want anyone to read this and think that I’m saying that selling art is the measuring stick of an artist. I am, in no way making any claims of expertise or making a step by step guide on how to sell art.
This is just a personal story. The very emotionally confusing yet, incredibly fulfilling story of how I sold my first art piece. From a fine art gallery of all places.
I’ve always had a lot of questions about how art galleries function. If I’m honest I think that I now have even more questions than before. So when I saw an “Open call” post from a local gallery, I kept scrolling. “I mean, they must mean, like, establish artists, right?” I told myself. “Right?”
At this point in the story I should mention that I’ve been creative my whole life, although mostly with music. I’m sure I’ll write more about it later. Additionally, I’ve been practicing oil painting and visual collages in the prior year or two. Nothing major, no school or classes. Just a bunch of YouTube tutorials and books plus the occasional advice and guidance from more seasoned creatives and artists. All that and I still didn’t feel like an “establish artist”, whatever the fuck that means.
Well back to the story. If this was truly an “Open call” it would be a perfect opportunity to test out a theory that has been bouncing around my head for a whole lifetime now.
‘’When we talk about art and creativity, there are no bad ideas, only poor executions”
I feel accomplished that I can finally put that into words. I can’t remember if i heard it somewhere, but if this has been said before feel free to point it out. If not i want all the credit.
I went to the gallery’s website and read through the specifics on how to submit. “No more than three entries per person” that was perfect. I could submit multiple entries and improve my chances. I had like a month before the deadline. That’s plenty of time and I had no shortage of ideas. The theme of the open call was “Good News”. Uplifting and hopeful, yet subjective, I could definitely work with that.
There was only one problem. My self doubt. “Eww you think you’re good enough? They’ll probably just laugh at you.” Maybe. “You’re a poser, and if you submit that, they’ll know it, the whole world will know you’re a fake” Ouch “you think you’re Kanye, you think you’re fucking Basquiat? You’re just a fucking failure and even the worms in the ground will refuse to eat something as disgusting as you.” I’m a little ashamed to admit that I listened to it for the better part of that month. Honestly I’ve been listening to that part of my mind for most of my life.
“Just do it, what’s the worse thing that can happen?” There it was. The absurdist part of me. “It’s all made up, remember? Politics, religions, creeds, personal fictions, their opinions, and yes even your self doubt bud. Just do it” I was right, or that part of me was right really. I had nothing to lose and even if i did, and in the grand branching scheme of the ever expanding multiverse, the gamble was definitely worth it.
Two days before the dead line I decided to start working. I’ll spare you the hectic brainstorming, but I came up with a three piece series of collages. I did two pieces in one day, “Small Victory” and “Big Victory”.
The day of the deadline, something came up, I can’t really remember what it was but it goes to show how irrelevant our inconveniences can become in hindsight. I was busy the whole day but as I was dealing with the now forgotten issue, I was conceptualizing the last piece in my head. The colors and the cutouts. The feeling I wanted to transmit. As soon as I was done with the day’s tasks. I ran in the garage and started working on it like a madman. Yellow here, black there, cut the documents, glue them on. I took the submission picture as the cutouts were drying, two whole hours before the deadline. “Life Victory” was complete. I uploaded them then hit send. Set it and forget it. I left it alone.
A week later, I get an email from there gallery, I tap the screen an open the message.
“The submission deadline has been extended by two weeks” I laughed.
I continued on with my life. I painted a mural. I’ll write about that later as well. I hung out with friends and spent time with loved ones. I forgot about it honestly. One afternoon while I was at work, I received multiple emails from the gallery and I rushed to open them. It had a red header. “Thank you for your submission, however….’’ Ok next. Red header. Next . Open. GREEN HEADER. “Congratulations, your submission…” I didn’t even read the rest i knew exactly what that meant and I could not believe it.
When I got home that night I read through then rest of the email and submitted some additional information. The email also contained how and when to deliver it to the gallery along with the exhibition dates and I called the gallery because I didn’t know how to price it and the owner was super nice and gave me advice. I dropped it off as soon as I had the chance then waited for the day of the show.
I bought a nice shirt and invited some friends to come by and check out the art piece on the opening day of the show. We were all set. A piece of art that I created would be displayed in a local fine art gallery and I was still unsure if it was really happening or not.
The day of the show I went a bit early, I took a shot before entering the gallery and walked in. Shaky hands and all. As i was walking in i realized that I never even signed or dated the piece. I kept moving, the show must go on right? There were a lot of other artist with different backgrounds and skills. I felt shy but not intimidated, but the more complex and technical their art was, the less likely I was to approach them. Lucky for me most of them were nice and approached me. I learned a lot that day. Some of them have been at it for years, some have just began, and some had been trying to get their art in that gallery for years.
I was there for a few hours, then we went to the bar a couple of shops down the block. We had a few celebratory drinks and then we went back to the gallery. There were a lot less people and it was less hectic. We had good conversations with experienced artists. I was praised and congratulated multiple times. People seems surprised that it was my first gallery show. I didn’t know what to feel then and Im certainly still not sure. Praise is foreign to me, not because I wasn’t praised as a child or whatever Freudian thing one might assume, I just don’t know how to deal with it. We went home and slept it off. It was an unforgettable night.
The art piece continued to be displayed at the show and life went on. Work, bills, car repairs, bittersweet goodbyes to childhood best friends. The usual stuff. I feel somewhat sad to say that I only saw it at the gallery once.
A week after the exhibition was over I received an email saying that it was time for me to pick it up, thanking me for being part of the open call. I did not reply because I was having one of the most insane weeks at work (the entire city flooded while we were remodeling), so i put a pin on it and decided to deal with it later.
About a week after I ignored the email, on a humid Sunday afternoon, i received call from an unknown number. “Hello is this Adan?’’ Yes. “Hi were calling from the gallery…” I began to think of as many excuses one can imagine to justify not picking up the piece, but before i finished the thought, they continued. “… we’re calling to inform you that Life Victory has been sold.”
“What the fuck?” I thought to myself, but actually no i said it out loud. Into the phone. The voice laughed and continued “ It’s actually a nice story, a person familiar with the DACA process saw it and said that she would love to put it in her office. She wants people to know what their journey can feel like.” I was shocked because that was literally the only place I thought that someone might put it if they were to purchase it, but I didn’t say it in fear of sounding pretentious or snarky. The conversation continued for a bit longer and I was given further information as to how the transaction and shipping would proceed.
I drove to the gallery in the following days, I signed the piece, took some pictures and it was sent off.
I don’t know if this is THE most interesting story about selling my first art piece. There’s no Ocean 11 heist of the century plot twist, but it is special. I’d like to sound stoic and say that I was only testing out a hypothesis in order to prove something. In fact that’s what I told a lot of people because I didn’t think it would be accepted. Certainly not sold. The truth is, that it was a piece about hope. It contained hope, that’s the feeling I transmuted into it when I was putting it together.
Hope that it would prove to myself that I am both capable and deserving of creating something that can connect with people at a personal level. It was also the feeling of hope that it would inspire people in their journeys, of any kind really, but specifically about the immigration process. Finally, there’s the hope from the people that were involved in convincing me to submit something and those who were part of the process. My loved ones, my friends, the nice people at the gallery and all those who like what I do.
Thank you.
It is sometimes difficult to accept that we’re deserving and capable, but it pays off really well when we finally do. Listening to my self doubt is natural to me. Events like this show me the value of listening to those that we trust to have our best interest in mind when our judgment is clouded by our own biases.
So to sum it all up, I’ll bring it full circle. I’ll say that I’m still not sure which milestones are meant to big events and celebrated on this cloudy path, but i will continue to celebrate and keep record of creative things I do just in case the answer or lesson is hidden in hindsight, once the fog has lifted as it was the case with this situation.
Thank you to everyone that was involved. Please stick around because even as I’m pushing a boulder up a hill, I’m aiming for the top and I hope we can all get there together.
-Adam 9/12/23