Colleen Barry NYC Artist
patreon
Don’t chase : Summon / 6 Essential Rules for Building a Career in Art
🕑 Added 2025-08-29 11:55:45 +0000 UTC1. Don’t chase - summon.
Desperation has a scent, and dealers can smell it. Instead of running after opportunities, calmly go about your work. Make paintings that hold their ground and understand the landscape you’re operating in. Draw the right people into your orbit. Chasing never works—there’s a natural law that says: if I’m being pursued, I’ll keep running. So stop in your tracks, turn onto your own path, and walk it with purpose. This is an advance and retreat technique: you move forward through your work, then step back and let others come toward you.
That said, you also need to know when it’s the right time to ask something of someone. You can’t ignore the world—you have to ask for the things you want, and be persistent in asking. Just do it in a way that’s respectful, and deliver it well.
2. Find friends in or near your industry.
You might be one person away from the right connection—a friend of a friend. Find a connector in your circle: someone who knows many people, is a social animal, and is friendly enough to speak with you and refer you to others. The art world runs on what I call “friend referral.” Don’t be clingy, don’t be a weirdo. Be genuinely curious. Ask dealers about their artists and programing, their thoughts on culture, their clientele, —not just, “Will you represent me?” The right connector can point you toward the next rung on your ladder.
3. Create your own stage.
If you’re not represented yet and finding a gallery has been a struggle host your own pop-up or independently funded group show. Invite everyone. If you can get a notable person to host, and they have connections, even better. Don’t wait to make your pictures until a gallery discovers you, make them now and summon the dealers into your sphere. Throw a big party and let them see the momentum you already have. You’re moving forward on your own path, and a gallery can choose to hop on and join the ride or not. Will and I managed a pop up show back in 2022 entitled “Ride the Tiger” in Chelsea, NYC. It moved the needle for us for sure. It wasn’t exactly cheap but it paid off big league.
4. Apply to the SPRING/BREAK Art Show.
In both New York and Los Angeles, the SPRING/BREAK Art Show is a prime stage for emerging artists seeking gallery representation. Think of it as a talent scout’s fair run by the incredible duo Ambre Kelly and Andrew Gori that blends exposure to dealers with immersion in a lively, supportive community. It’s less traditional and more experimental than most art fairs, welcoming a broad spectrum of art forms and voices. I attended in 2022 and highly recommend it.
5. Post with purpose on Instagram.
Keep a clear and steady voice on social media. Use Stories more than your main feed (imo), and make it very easy for people to understand what you’re doing, especially if you have a show coming up. Keep it simple and repeat the key information. Remember, your followers are busy. They’re scrolling quickly, so if you don’t stop them in their tracks with a compelling image and a clear message, they’ll breeze right past. Use simple and short language, as if you’re speaking to a child. Make your posts visually strong and immediately understandable.
6. Authenticity always wins.
In the end, authenticity beats the competition every time. For a while, I struggled with feeling like I didn’t fit in, it was a huge hurdle. I felt like an outsider, doing everything differently and understanding the art world in a completely different way than most. After years of working in my own lane, I emerged feeling almost alien. But then I realized: everything that set me apart was exactly what nobody else had, and that was my advantage. I learned to capitalize on it, and I think you should too. Just be yourself.
Comments
Marion
I live in an ‘art desert’ in a large city in Australia. So I go to live for several months every year in Paris. It’s a balance which seems to work for me. I’m heading off to Paris again in three days.
colleen barry
Such truth Shelah. TY.
Shelah Horvitz
Great advice. I will add, though, it matters where you are. It is not true that if you build it, they will come. You have to be where the collectors are. Not just money — they have to value art and value your flavor of art. I wasted decades and thousands of dollars trying to build something in the Boston area, where people are foodies, where they will throw any amount of cash at technology, but where they (for the most part) simply do not care about art. In Maine where I live now, people will spend any amount of money on liquor or cars but they will ask you how long a piece took you and work it out against minimum wage to figure out if your price is too high. I threw a popup when I came to Maine and it was a total waste of money because it was not a place of collectors. Colleen speaks from living in NYC. Do not cast your seeds upon stone. There are art markets and there are art deserts. If you don't live in an art market, find a way to get connections in one. This is a tricky thing because it always costs a fortune to live in a city where there's an art market, and you may have to have a day job that sucks all your time and energy just to pay rent, leaving you too exhausted to make art, so there's a tradeoff. You have to work it out for yourself.
