rejection, and putting nice ideas into practice
This is an essay published on my Substack, ‘artist notes’. To subscribe and have future newsletters delivered straight to your inbox, please click here.
Oftentimes when I read articles, I notice how the writer sums everything up in the final paragraph so neatly: like the ‘lesson’ of the piece has been learned; that they are writing from a place of resolution and closing the book on a chapter that is now over. And I always think when I read those sorts of pieces, “But you’re still very much alive and I can’t believe you’re never actually going to make those same mistakes / have those same worries / never contradict yourself again!” It feels a bit pat, just too tidy. And then I wondered if I’d done that very thing myself in this piece. Well, probably, but I’m here just one month later to demonstrate that I am a work in progress, and this Substack is a document of that. It should be. It comes out of my personal, private notebook, which is a real-time recording of trying to make a life as an artist. And like everything else, that process doesn’t only go in one direction - some weeks I will feel like I’ve learned something, or reached a new understanding. The next week (day!) that might have gone out the window.
All this to say that my relationship with ‘failure’ as a concept and as a reality (ugh, too much of a reality sometimes) is not fixed. I started artist note #1 with a quote from Jerry Saltz: “Somehow I knew that nothing I was doing could be a mistake, because at least I was trying to do something.” In the context of that essay, it felt true and useful. Since I published that piece I have failed to be selected (haven’t made it past the first round, in fact) in three separate callouts I submitted to. In this context, right now, I look at that quote and it feels meaningless. Oh, it's all good because I gave it a shot! Well, I wish I hadn't, because now I feel like a loser who can't paint
A couple of weeks on from the third ‘no’ plopping into my inbox, the most immediate disappointment and self-doubt has passed, but I am still feeling the effect on my confidence.
This type of rejection is such an inherent part of trying to ‘succeed’ as an artist, though, that learning to make some kind of peace with it is basically essential. Accepting its inevitability is the first step - like, actually accepting it - which is different from just sort of knowing it in your head, and much, much harder. Then, I think, comes letting yourself feel shit for a bit. I have always fought against feeling bad and it’s a fight I’ve always lost, because sometimes things are crap and you will feel sad about them. Brushing bad feelings off or denying to yourself that they exist is dumb. It’s a natural reaction to upsetting things to be upset. Obvs, but how many times have I acted as though it isn’t? When I realised I wasn’t going to be selected for the third opportunity in my recent triple whammy of rejection, I was sad and I wanted to be sad. The first two weren’t so bad because I didn’t really expect that I would be chosen, but the third I sort of had some hope around, it seemed more within reach, and so when I got the email (sadly, this time your work hasn’t…) I really wanted to cry on the 12.27 from St Pancras. But how much easier I find the ‘getting over it’ process when I don’t try to shove it down and shrug it off. I was glum for a couple of days and accepting that — indulging it, if you like — allowed it to have its time and then dissipate a bit.
The cycle of “I’m a massive, talentless loser, who is completely shit, and deluded, as well” thoughts are more difficult to frame as healthy, though, and also more difficult to shake off. When you don’t try very hard at something, you can tell yourself that’s the reason you’ve failed, but when you’ve given something your all, produced what you feel is the very best work you can do… Ugh, it feels bad when you don’t get the reaction to it you were hoping for. There are lots of reasons for not making it into an exhibition, onto a shortlist, etc that have nothing to do with the quality of your work, and I know them all: limited space, intense competition, personal taste of the judges, how your work sits with that of the other selected artists, etc… But the result is still the same, and it’s disappointing, frustrating, and anxiety-inducing.
And it is very, very difficult to view as progress.
I do like the Robert Rauschenberg quote on conceiving failure as progress that I shared here, but I definitely found it a lot easier to make sense of in the context of the work itself. I've been going back and forth with it over the last couple of weeks a lot, and at first I was truly stumped as to how I could possibly see this time of failure as getting me anywhere at all. Through scribbling my thoughts down, however, and working through them in writing, I am starting to figure it out. I think that maybe the progress you can achieve in this sort of situation is a much more significant, and hopefully rewarding, one than being able to add another line to your artist's bio. It's about gaining a richer understanding of what really matters.
It’s scary to put yourself and your work ‘out there'. There’s no certainty, and there never is. So much of it is out of your hands. A yes can be followed by a no as easily as another yes, and unless you’re in a very select group that will probably always be the case. In his piece in the New York Times on a US reality show called The Exhibit (in which artists who already have their work in museums, hire assistants, and generally sound pretty successful) compete to be awarded $100,000 and an exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C, Travis Diehl says two things that jumped out at me:
“MTV’s picture of the art world varnishes the sheer desperation and insecurity found at almost every level of the game.”
“There is no arriving, only striving.”
My own goals are more modest (luckily for me lol) and the second quote is sooo cheesy it makes me cringe, but both make the point pretty well that the hideousness basically never ends! It's not like in The Sims, where you complete a certain number of paintings and you get a promotion! Such a shame. Of course, uncertainty is everywhere in life, but a job in the creative arts isn’t exactly playing it safe. And this is awkward. Because I am awful at living with uncertainty. Like really bad. There’s a reason I love The Sims so much, and it’s no coincidence I played it so much during the pandemic. I wanted order, and control over something.
But I think that herein might after all be the answer I’ve been looking for. Feeling powerless and lacking in control, which might be my genuine least favourite thing in life, is not enough to put me off. I don’t have to enter into any competitions, I don’t have to send my work to galleries, offer it for sale, or put it out into the world in any way at all. But I do, even though it’s frequently akin to throwing something very precious out into a massive, silent void.
So, clearly, in a fundamental way that I rarely (sometimes but rarely) even question, it’s simply… worth it. Not just worth it for the chance that it might be accepted, celebrated, but worth it in and of itself. I have never once considered giving up in any serious way.
It does annoy me when I get so hung up on external markers of success. Of course, without some of them, the ability to devote enough time and energy to art becomes difficult to impossible — fucking money chief among them, of course. And who doesn’t want people to like the stuff they make? The disappointment is twofold: there’s the dent to your confidence, but also there’s the missing out on the opportunity itself - the exposure, the possible financial reward, maybe a sense of legitimization. I really want those things for me and my work, and they motivate me in a positive way — group shows and exhibitions and galleries and all of it. But also…? I have achieved some of these things. It’s exciting and brilliant and I am proud and happy about them, but they don't guarantee future success, save you from ever feeling disappointment again, or give you shatter-proof self-confidence. It's sad but true, I think, that the lows hit harder than the highs; that, for a lot of us, it's the knockbacks that seem to say the most about who we really are, regardless of evidence to the contrary.
To me, this just confirms the importance of bringing focus back to the work itself. If you read my first ‘short note’ on Friday, you might remember I mentioned this quote from one of my very favourite writers, Haley Nahman, taken from an episode of her Maybe Baby podcast entitled ‘What if time management doesn't = productivity?’
"I think we oftentimes sap process of its value by assuming that the outcome is all that matters."
I have to make a conscious effort to overcome this in myself. I am pleased that my own opinion of my work doesn’t tend to change based on others’ reactions (or lack thereof, love that), but I want to give a proper amount of weight to the immense pleasure I get out of painting; how happy it makes me, the comfort, solace, excitement, satisfaction it gives. If I can produce something that gives me all those wonderful feelings both in the making and the result, how is that failing? If that particular work doesn’t also give me money or a PRIZE, ffs, but it did give me whole days outside of my head and inside a world of colour and creativity, why is my definition of success so narrow as to exclude such a thing?
'Failing' to be selected for three artist opportunities that would have been mega exciting to be involved with was (is) disappointing and frustrating and confidence-knocking, for sure. But it's made me realise more than ever that it's not what I do it for, that it actually doesn't have a negative effect on my will or ability to paint; that I can still sit down tomorrow and get out my paints and be an artist, and that will always be the thing that gets me through all sorts of other shit… I've talked a lot about uncertainty and feeling the lack of control. But even when it's going badly and I freak out, I never feel powerless when I'm actually painting - it's always there for me and I can always rely on it. Thinking about this makes me recall something Alice Neel said:
Realising that in a deeper way, and being comforted by that, does feel a lot like progress. Also, um, hello! It’s a perfect description of playing The Sims!
Thank you for reading! A reminder that the next 'artist note’, going out on 30th April, will be for paying subscribers to my Substack only (you can be in with a chance of winning a paid sub on my Instagram: @hollyhorton_).
Have a lovely Sunday.
