I'm a gallerista. I'm the one who sells your art. I'm the one who greets the clients in the gallery and walks them around the exhibits, who watches to see if they are engaged and then tries to cultivate them toward making an acquisition.
I'm the one who explains your work, who describes who you are and why your art should be part of their collection. I'm the one who takes it down from the wall and holds it close so they can see, who walks back to the easel and sets it up while keeping an ongoing witty repartee about the inspiration that lives behind the sometimes obscure nature of your brushwork.
I'm the one who stands -- sometimes invisible to you -- when you come in to the gallery to see the gallery director. The one who takes your empty glass and refills it when you are busy at your opening, who finds interested clients and calls their attention to where YOU are, standing in a circle of your admirers.
Have you thanked your gallerista?
Galleristas are human, you know. We love art, otherwise we would not be in this business. In fact, I am an artist myself, which is why I can sometimes do a better job of explaining your work than a non-artist. And, being human, I find that the artists who come in to the gallery and actually acknowledge me, who -- gasp! -- remember my name, suddenly become "my favorite artists" and their paintings become "some of the strongest work to date." And when I hear back from my gallery director that an artist was thrilled that I sold her work and actually thanked me....
As an artist, I identify with the reticence many artists feel - perhaps shyness keeps them from acknowledging that many people work toward making their career a success.
That said, wouldn't it be nice that the next time a gallerista sold a piece of your work, you sat right down and wrote him or her a Thank You note for working so hard to make your career a success?
An artist -- no matter how talented -- cannot create a career on their own. As the old Beatles song goes, "I get by with a little help from my friends..."
