The Day My Gallery Ghosted Me

The Build-Up: Ambition Meets Naïveté

Failure and I go way back, like high school pen pals who stopped writing but occasionally pop up in dreams to say, “Still here!” Let’s rewind to my early 20s—back when I’d just graduated from the University of New Mexico with a Fine Arts degree and the misplaced confidence of someone who hadn’t yet faced real rejection. I was eager to honor my parents’ legacy in the art world but had this grand idea that I could modernize their gallery—a boutique adobe haven filled with Southwestern masterpieces handed down through generations.

What did that mean, exactly? To 22-year-old me, "modernizing" was creating an art exhibit that would marry digital media with traditional desert themes. I vividly remember pitching the title over Sunday carne adovada with my parents: Sunset.exe. They blinked at me, faces clouded with polite concern. “It’s edgy,” I insisted. They exchanged a glance that probably translated to, "Who raised this child?"

I convinced myself they were simply stuck in their ways, relics of a pre-iPad era. I told myself I would teach them. I spent weeks contacting photographers, video artists, and digital sculptors, all with the enthusiasm of a budding visionary. The gallery’s adobe walls would get projection screens; there’d be ambient desert sounds, motion-detecting installations—all very “cutting edge” for the dusty Santa Fe scene. In hindsight, my parents were suspiciously hands-off. That should’ve been my first clue.

The Flop: When Reality Strikes

Eventually, opening night arrived. Wine was poured. Guests arrived dressed in their Southwest best (think turquoise jewelry and bolo ties as far as the eye could see). Families meandered in with subdued curiosity. And then ... crickets.

To say the whole thing bombed would be an insult to actual bombings, which at least create explosive reactions. Instead, Sunset.exe landed with all the enthusiasm of a tumbleweed stuck in a chain-link fence.

As the crowd thinned out and the wine bottles emptied, I grasped two things:
1. My parents hadn’t promoted the exhibit as heavily as they usually did.
2. Even the people who showed up didn’t connect with what I was trying to do. They wore polite smiles as they murmured about how "interesting" it all was—an art-world euphemism that translates to, "Yikes, but I’m too cultured to say more."

Somehow, though, I wasn’t mad at them. I was mad at me. I’d overlooked a huge factor: the audience. Santa Fe’s art enthusiasts weren’t clamoring for glitchy sunsets or experimental performance pieces involving VR headsets. What draws people into galleries here is soul. A story. Something ancient and resonant, not sleek and distant. Instead of innovating, I’d built a neon bridge to nowhere.

The Aftermath: Lessons From the Desert

If failure were a burrito, this one came fully loaded: a tortilla of disappointment wrapping beans of self-doubt, cheese of embarrassment, and a generous drizzle of life-is-hard sauce. After putting the gallery back to its adobe roots (the projection screens lasted exactly two days), I wanted to crawl into a kiva fireplace and never come out. But failure demands your attention—it’s the pushy art teacher of life, insisting you learn something whether you want to or not.

Here’s what that epic crash taught me:

  • Know Your Audience
    Ambition is great, but if your idea doesn’t spark a connection, it doesn’t matter how groundbreaking it is. I tried to create something that excited me without considering what would resonate with the people walking through those sunbaked doors.

  • Respect the Past While Building the Future
    My attempt to “modernize” wasn’t inherently bad, but I bulldozed over the heart of what made the gallery special. Now, when I help curate at my family’s gallery, I think of innovation as an adobe wall. Build on what works; don’t break it down for the sake of proving a point.

  • Fail Loudly, Fail Proudly
    Did I feel like a fool? Oh, 100%. But I now see failure as a byproduct of trying. Sunset.exe wasn’t a waste—it was a workshop disguised as humiliation. There’s honor in experimenting, even when you crash and burn.

Resilience Is An Art Form

If you’ve ever bombed a presentation, sent a regrettable text to an ex, or overcooked a dinner you were sure would win over a date, then congrats: you’re human. And here’s the secret no one puts on Instagram—it’s from those moments, the ones where we feel like a splattered Jackson Pollock painting of our former selves, that growth blooms.

For me, that failure didn’t mean abandoning creativity—it just meant finding balance. These days, I blend tradition with innovation as carefully as I’d mix the colors in a sand painting. The gallery displays new artists who challenge boundaries but stay steeped in stories rooted in the Southwest. When I curate, I now ask, “What will this mean to someone walking in for the first time?” Resilience taught me the value of connection, whether it’s with art, people, or even yourself.

So here’s what I’ll leave you with: Next time failure rears its sore-loser head, see it for what it really is—a stepping-stone with a sense of humor. After all, even Sunset.exe gave me a great story to tell (and a lesson that deserts aren’t meant for glitch art).