Femmes @ Opera Gallery SoHo NYC

In mid 2000, having recently graduated art school, determined to get into a high end NYC art gallery I did the one thing that they teach you never to do. I put a copy of my portfolio under my art and walked around SoHo, NYC showing any gallery who would look.

Cold calling like this is not typically a way to get into a gallery, in fact just the opposite. The typical path is suffering for years in obscurity until you are discovered… that seemed like a bad plan to me at the time and far too slow.

I was beating the pavement for only 6 hours before I met Eric Alouche of the Opera Gallery in SoHo. For some unknown reason he didn’t dismiss me out right… instead he said ‘Come back next week with your two best pieces.’

Shortly after that, my work was being displayed on the same wall as Warhol and Chagall. I was 23.

I was with the gallery approximately one year, when this strange twist of fate was cut short by another twist of fate 1.5 miles away at the World Trade Center on Sept 11, 2001.

To this day, Im not certain why Eric said ‘yes’.