On Handling Rejection

I received another rejection email the other day for a submission to a call for art. I was disappointed. Nay, dismayed. At first I wanted to be hurt and cry about it, but I realized they weren’t worth the energy.

I spent about an hour processing the experience and went looking for answers as to why my piece was rejected. My first impulse was to think it was something about me as a person, and how I present myself and my work on my website or my social media. I reached for that low hanging fruit because those are the easiest things for me to dismiss. I mean, if somebody is going to reject my art because they don't like me as a person or don't like the way I present myself, well we all know where people like that can go. Life should not about pleasing others, and certainly my art is not about that.

Then I thought that the jurists didn't like the way that I present my whole body of work because it's not cohesive. This one was a little harder to work through. I depict my art the same way I depict myself: variably. Many jurists (and gallerists, for that matter) want to see several works that fit in a theme. For example, my art quilt “Untitled (with brushstrokes)” is the only one of its kind. Most jurists would want to see other pieces in that same style with variations being mainly in color or size. I have been told that too much variability in art demonstrates a lack of expertise or of taking oneself and one’s work seriously. I guess they don’t agree with the concept of gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art): an artwork, design, or creative process where different art forms are combined to create a single cohesive whole.

If that indeed was the reason for the rejection, I decided I could live with it. If people, like jurists and gallerists, see art merely as a commodity (that’s their business, after all) rather than an expression of self or experience, it makes sense that they want to see repetition rather than innovation. Meh, let them scoff at my variability!

Lastly, I thought perhaps the jurists simply didn’t like my work. It didn’t speak to them. They didn’t find it beautiful or interesting or compelling or any of the other things they subjectively base their selections on. Again, I cannot (will not!) change who I am or what I make to pander to someone else. I certainly don’t like everything I see out there. Rejection, schmejection!

Finally, I realized that although there were 4,000 pieces selected for the show, that must mean there were somewhere in the tens of thousands of submissions. Someone’s submission had to be rejected. There will be other places to submit in the future.

Moving on!