When the Body Says No (and We Say Yes Anyway)

I knew it was wrong from the very beginning. Not in a dramatic thunder-clap way, but in that quiet, unmistakable way the body whispers don’t do this. Mine was whispering loudly. My stomach tightened and I got that feeling in my belly and yet my mind kept barging in to override it:

This could solve your financial worries.You’ll finally get to paint big, bold, free.Just say yes.

And so I did.

The seduction came from a fast-talking gallery owner with a dazzling plan for my work—how many paintings they wanted, exactly which ones, and could I make these small ones bigger? Instead of noticing the red flags waving like carnival banners, I nodded agreeably and rearranged my entire summer.

I painted to please rather than to explore. I worked faster than felt honest. I drove hundreds of miles to deliver work in “a timely fashion.” I adapted, hustled, smiled, and waited for the sales I had been promised.

Then came the silence.

Unanswered emails. No contract. Zero promotion. The invisible treatment, as though my work were inconvenient clutter rather than what they had enthusiastically demanded. My gut churned, and this time not from anxiety—but recognition. I had betrayed my own work, and it knew.

After four months of this uneasy limbo, the call came:

“Come pick up your paintings… they just aren’t selling.”

Ten large paintings. Months of rushed labour. And just like that, I was expected to quietly remove myself.

But here’s the thing about silence: it fills with stories. When I finally spoke to other artists represented there, the puzzle pieces clicked into place. A few weeks after I retrieved my work, the gallery unveiled their new star—an artist whose work is often confused with mine, and whose commercial success apparently warranted “great fanfare and a lavish promotional campaign.”

There it was. The missing piece. A strategic swap. My work had been a placeholder.

Anger & Clarity

It stung—of course it did. It was deceitful, disrespectful, and unprofessional, both from the gallery and from the artist who stepped in without a word. I was angry, but more than that, I was embarrassed. Not because my work didn’t sell, but because I ignored my instincts for a promise my body already knew wasn’t real.

The Real Lesson

I didn’t lose paintings. I didn’t lose a gallery. I lost the illusion that someone else’s approval will ever be worth overriding my own truth.

My work is not meant to be rushed into a commercial costume to please someone else’s agenda. My best paintings have always come from listening—really listening—to that quiet voice that lives deep in the gut. The next time it speaks, I’ll honour it.

Because the body knows. And when we finally learn to trust it, the art gets better—not bigger, not louder, not more “sellable”—but more authentically ours.

The art world loves to dazzle. It offers possibility in polished whispers and tells us that meaning waits on white walls, in contracts, in someone else’s approval. But art was never born there. It doesn’t need a stage to breathe. It doesn’t need applause to exist.

As David Bowie says, “Never play to the gallery.”  Not because galleries are wrong—I work with some wonderfully dedicated ones that genuinely support the artist’s vision—but because our work loses its voice the moment we try to make it speak someone else’s language. The body knows when we betray our own direction. It tightens. It whispers. It pulls us away from the stage lights and toward the deeper water, the place Bowie refers to when he says to wade past the point where you can stand. That edge—unsteady but honest—is where the real encounter begins.

So I’m choosing to let my paintings breathe again.To let instinct be my first audience.To let the gallery come second, if it comes at all.

Because art isn’t a ladder to climb.

It’s a pulse to protect.

And I intend to keep it wild.

Come visit my Open Studio and howl with me on December 4th, 2025 from 4pm to 8pm - I'd love to share my holy wild space with you.

photo by Catherine Beaudette