Thankyou !

I’m an artist fortunate enough to have representation at a handful of galleries that work hard to sell my work. All of those relationships arose out of their finding me, rather than my submitting through a website. Still, I create 70-100 pieces a year and would like to reach a wider market in other cities so I send out a lot of submissions (maybe 50-100 per year). Most of these submissions are through a gallery’s website. Its quite rare that I receive any sort of acknowledgement at all. This has been the experience of many of the artists I spoken with about the practice, too. Even a simple “thanks, but no thanks” would go a long way toward establishing goodwill among the artists who submit.

Most galleries have online forms and a disclaimer stating that they can’t contact everyone, but if they like you they’ll be in touch. Do gallerists actually look at these submissions? If a gallery ignores submissions wouldn’t it be simpler for all involved to state that they’re not currently accepting submissions?

Maybe I’m just cranky, or have an outmoded idea of basic decorum, but its frustrating to follow a gallery’s stated submission procedures only to be ignored.