Yesterday I received a call from the gallery director in New York. His partner’s seriously ill, he’s overwhelmed—he might have to close the gallery and cancel my show. I’ve spent a year putting together this show, my first solo show in New York. I took in many extra grueling garden jobs last year to raise the $10,000 for printing and framing, sublet an apartment in New York for 3 weeks to hustle people into my show, my family bought plane tickets to be at the opening, my east coast friends who have never seen my work are flying in to spend time with me at the show, I printed my own invitation that’s arriving next week… I put all I had into it designing a beautiful exhibition for the space. I’ve tried for years to get my work to New York. I had concerns about this gallery from the start, but decided to look at the show as a sort of open studio, to get people in to actually see my art, because the scale is something that can’t be grasped in slides or over the internet—that maybe this would lead to something better…
I told the gallery director that I’d really like him to think about what we can do to make this show happen. Because of the partner’s illness, no press release has been sent out, no invitation printed, nothing. The show opens in less than three weeks. I’ve offered to step in (having run a gallery for 5 years) and do a lot of the detail work that he relied on his partner to do… He’s going to call me today and let me know his final answer.
I’d like to say that I’m prepared for the worst, that I’ve already run this scenario over in my mind, but honestly I never imagined the gallery closing. I thought at least I’d have the work shown. This is a disappointment so deep that I feel my chest caving in just imagining it. So I wait for the call… How do I pick myself up, strap my boots on, and start all over again?
On the bright side, I have 8 big boxes with 52 framed photos, 12 sound pieces, and 2 videos ready to be shipped to a gallery near you…