Isalos Fine Art

Thank you for your interest. Thank you for submitting. X thanks you for your recent submission. Thank you for sending us your work. Etc., etc., etc.

If you’ve ever submitted anything anywhere, you probably recognize these familiar beginnings to letters informing you that your work is not being accepted. Since rejection is the opposite of acceptance, we usually end-up thinking of these as “rejection letters”.

Lately, I’ve had to send these non-acceptance letters myself, and I don’t enjoy it. Having received plenty, I understand how it feels. On the other hand, I’ve developed a thick enough skin to deal with it and tell myself that it doesn’t matter.

It truly doesn’t matter.  Long ago I found myself on the staff of a few literary magazines, and I learned how arbitrary acceptance can be. At one (fairly prestigious) publication, we chose manuscripts as a class. Half of the class had an academic bias, and was most interested in a story’s theme and meaning. I was of a different bias, impressed by strong writing that felt real and significant. The best work, I felt, couldn’t be easily summed up. If one couldn’t explain to the class what exactly was good about it, the story might really have something going for it. I found the experience frustrating, but it was a lesson in the arbitrary nature of acceptance and rejection. I also learned how committees are the death of art.

Well, our committee is small, as is our gallery, and we have to say no to a number of talented artists. In a small town it can be especially difficult, since some of those artists are also our friends. As the gallery grows though, the better we have to be at saying no.

It’s interesting to see how different artists deal with it. Some have read and believed the books and articles that coach artists to be aggressive and persistent. They have learned that you don’t take no for an answer. It often seems that less experienced, and perhaps less talented artists are also less emotionally connected to their work. They find it easier to sell it as if it were any other widget.

Then there are the artists who have been at it long enough to get their work out there and let it speak for itself. They understand that some people will “get” it, while others simply won’t. They accept that it is pointless to try selling something to someone to whom it does not appeal. True, art won’t stick its foot in the door and get you an audience, but repeated exposure might get it noticed in a positive way.

I like it when I get a chance to take work by someone I’ve had to turn down in the past. Maybe this time the work looked different to me, or maybe it really was different. Maybe the time was just right, when it wasn’t before. Either way, it isn’t that the work is or isn’t good enough. There are countless variables. What else, for instance am I currently showing in the gallery? If I’m showing three landscape watercolorists, maybe a fourth would be too many. And so on.

The way an artist takes rejection can say much about them. If they’re graceful about it, you think “that’s someone I  can work with”. If they’re not, or if they’re pushy, it doesn’t matter how good their work is: you don’t want to deal with them. I received a few emails thanking me for looking at the work. Now there’s a touch of class, and since I was depressed about not accepting them, it was appreciated.

Oh by the way: thanks for your interest in the blog. Really.