Are ALL galleries like this?

I've been searching around again recently for decent galleries to enable me to show my art to a wider audience. But they seem to be sadly lacking............ somehow. I've been in two privately owned ones recently, in different but affluent parts of the country (Somerset and Cheshire) where there was a definite pattern to the way the visit went...............

I walked into the large and expensive looking gallery with a companion. Two people, who had made the effort of walking through the door. In both cases the person in the gallery was male, and on his own and not at all busy. Very little eye contact was made by the gallery man, even though I made a point on both occasions of trying to make it. We walked around, looking at the pictures, made comments about some and passed over others very quickly. We had opinions, and made them in an informed way. We were in the gallery for more than ten minutes. And at no point did the gallery man come out from behind his desk, at no point did he walk around with us asking what we were interested in, at no point did he try to start any conversation of any kind with us, at no point did he try to sell anything to us. As we left, and thanked him, he quietly acknowledged us. I walked out, feeling that I hadn't been given any "service" from him.

Am I missing something here?

Isn't the gallery there to "sell"? Or at least promote, or to interest people in some way in art?

Why didn't they make any effort? Are all the people who go into a gallery considered "time wasters"? Was it because I didn't look like a *buyer*? Do they work on the thought that if anyone wants to buy a painting, they'll ask?

Was I impressed with each gallery? No. Will I be trying to get my artwork into their gallery? No. Has this increased my faith in galleries? No. Will I still carry on looking at other galleries? Yes. Do I hold out much hope of any success with them? No.

But the day wasn't wasted - not at all. I finally met one of my all time favourite musicians. Busking! in Chester! The minute I turned the corner, and heard the haunting electric violin, I thought "That sounds like Ed Alleyne-Johnson" and sure enough, on closer inspection, it WAS him! WOWWWWWW! WOW! WOWWWW! We joined the crowd of interested onlookers, a silly grin on my face, to actually hear this violinist in real life. I've listened to his music often enough, infact one piece always raises the hairs on the back of my neck - its eerie, and haunting, soaring but with an underlying depth of beat to it - one of my favourite tunes. We stood, and listened and when there was a chance I went up to him and told him I'd been a fan of his for years, he shook my hand and smiled in acknowledgment but had other people clamouring for his attention, so I turned away with a rueful grin, and started back along the street........................until he started playing again.......................the piece that I love so much, the haunting melody of Oxford Suite 1. That stopped me dead in my tracks, and as a person pulled by the magic of his music, I returned to hear it in its entirety. Beautiful!!!!! I had a chance then, to go up to him, smile, and gave him my business card and say"Thankyou for that. I'm an Erotic Artist, and if you're in need of any art, let me know!". He took the card, and I left it at that. There wasn't much else to say, but I knew I wanted to make contact with him, I knew as a creative person how much I like it when someone makes the effort to speak to me and say they like my work. So I wanted to do it for someone I admired too.


And, on a final note for the day, here's the receipt for a meal we had in Chester. It makes me smile everytime I look at it............can you see why......................................:)