the dirt

I wrote this post in 2016 and it still applies today. In this week alone I’ve applied for 3 things and been rejected from 2 others so I thought I’d revisit this post from the archives… enjoy!

The start of many a rejection letter…no need to read the rest.

Rejection is hard for everyone but when you are an independent artist, you apply for a lot of things; grants, residencies, teaching opportunities, exhibitions, projects proposals. So by default, you get A LOT of rejection letters. I don’t keep an actual count, but I’d estimate that I’ve received at least 40 since the beginning of this year and I haven’t even heard back from all the things I’ve applied for.

Sometimes you get more than one per week and it’s hard to not let self doubt creep in. Especially when a lot of your time goes into researching, custom formatting photos for each application and not to mention the $15 -$25 application fees can really add up. But as artists, we force ourselves not to wallow in it and we drag our asses back out to the studio and keep making art.

Kim Liao recently wrote an article called “Why You Should Aim for 100 Rejections A Year”, which discusses the idea of embracing rejection as a goal. The more that you ‘collect’ rejection letters, the more you are applying for, the more practice you get at applying for things, the less you invest in caring about the rejection itself and the odds are you will actually get accepted to a few things too.

While I’ve been rejected from 40+ opportunities to date this year, I’ve also been accepted to at least 10, some of them really amazing, potentially career changing opportunities. The pile of rejection letters next to those few acceptance letters only makes those acceptances even more sweet.

In the rollercoaster of emotions that has been the past two weeks, losing our dog Indigo was the hardest but there has also been a number of really good and exciting things happening as well. I was invited to a site visit and meeting with the Art in State Buildings program at the University of Florida – Gainesville campus as one of two finalists for a permanent public art project in their Career Connections Center building. It was fantastic to meet with the staff and students, hear their thoughts on how they feel about working in their brand new LEED certified center and to see their reactions to my work samples. They are specifically looking for art that exudes biophilia – the human connection to nature, and I’m pretty sure that I can provide them with that! Over the next few months, I’ll be working on a final proposal for their central stairwell, will present everything to the committee in April in person and then fingers crossed. Either way, the process of preparing and presenting my work in this format will be a great experience.

While I was in Florida for this meeting, I took the opportunity to reconnect with dear friends who I hadn’t seen in person in 6 or so years. The irony was that they were both experiencing their own recent and profound loss and so our visit was a blend of hysterical laughter, consoling hugs, walking through gardens, tears, swimming with manatees, surviving the hundreds of well intentioned “I’m so sorry” comments and completing the challenging and mundane tasks that follow the loss of loved ones. It’s hard to feel good and bad all at the same time, but I think that laughing while we cry is how we make it through. These are a few images from my trip that remind me of the beauty in the world, the amazingness of nature and how lucky we are to be connected to it.