Dear Artist,
After one of our recent Zoom sessions with a visiting curator, a Praxis member named Gina sent him a brief thank-you note.
She did not pitch him. She did not send a proposal. She just thanked him for the conversation.
He
wrote back. He told her he had looked at her website on his own. He said kind, specific things about the work. And he closed with this: "Hope you get plenty of opportunities to show your work and engage with an audience, since that is the moment something you created fully becomes art."
Gina shared the message in our community. She was moved by it. And I think the reason it moved her -- and the reason it stayed with me -- is that it
was so unexpected. Artists are not used to curators writing back. They are not used to being seen.
But here is what I have learned from years of conversations with curators: they are not as unreachable as the art world makes them seem. What they are is overloaded. Inundated with cold outreach and unsolicited proposals that arrive with no context.
Context is everything.
When a curator comes to a Praxis session, they are in a conversation, not a gatekeeping mode. And when they receive the Praxis Center Portfolio -- the directory of member websites we send to our curator network, they are browsing with genuine curiosity.
Another member, David, had a similar experience from a different direction. He started showing up to gallery receptions in Chelsea
consistently -- same galleries, week after week. Directors began recognizing him. Then one evening, he found himself in an almost empty gallery with the director and the owner. They talked for an hour. The next day, the gallery was following him on Instagram. A personal invitation to the next reception arrived shortly after.
"I think getting to know the powers that be and making them feel comfortable with you is instrumental to
breaking down barriers," he wrote. He is now represented by that gallery.
Praxis is designed to create exactly that kind of proximity. Not artificially, but genuinely. The curators who come to our sessions are real people who value the conversations. The Portfolio is not a
marketing tool -- it is a context-builder. It says, quietly: this artist is serious, connected, and part of a community that curators trust.
The Portfolio is updated and sent to our curator network this Saturday.
If you join Praxis on an annual plan before Saturday, you will be included in that send.
Annual membership is $595 a year. It includes the weekly sessions, the full course library, the community, and Portfolio inclusion. Monthly membership is $59 a month and includes everything except the Portfolio.
Join here: https://praxiscenter.thrivecart.com/praxis-center-membership/
More this week. For now, I hope Gina's story stays with you a little.
That is what being in the right room can look like.
With warmth,
Brainard Carey
Praxis Center