Can rejection be fun?
Hello all,
I am in the middle of nowhere this week, documenting wildlife surveys in a big property. It is (I hope) fun and important work. It is (I hope) actually happening and the recent flooding we've had in Australia is (I hope) not so bad I can't drive my car to where I need to go. I hope to tell you about how this trip went next week.
Recently, I have had a lot of rejection. That is fine, it's normal. I'm not looking for pity, sympathy or 'poor me'. If you're an artist rejection is just part of it. You propose an exhibition, apply for a grant or submit to an award and, more often than not, you're getting told 'no'. Rejection stings less each year, but it still stings.
So I've started to wonder: how can I make rejection fun? I was inspired by 'un-Rising' which was a 1 night festival where everyone who had been rejected from a big arts festival could exhibit/perform or share in a car park for free. It was a great idea. It was particularly great because Rising didn't tell people that, actually, they were only going to exhibit 4 artists' work at the city wide festival. This is key because if you know they are choosing 4 for a whole city, you get a sense of the scale and impact they are looking for.
I saw a t shirt as part of an art project, and I really want to steal it. The t shirt read 'we regret to inform you that your application was unsuccessful'. I couldn't tell if the text was referencing the artistic grant rejection letters, or a passport rejection (which was one of the stories being shared in the art piece). I sort of liked that - it felt like community. Maybe banding together and saying 'hey, we all get knocked back, isn't it a bit shit?' is enough to make rejection feel more like living and a bit less like dying.
I'm considering making a t shirt with the most common first line of a rejection letter: 'Due to this year's strong competition we regret to inform you that your application was unsuccessful'. I think it'd be somewhat punkish and cheeky, but also a wink to my friends and peers who have, of course, had their share of rejection as well.
Or maybe as Homer Simpson says 'Kids you learned a lesson today: you tried and it didn't work out. The lesson is: never try'. Of course, it sucks to get knocked back, but that doesn't stop us trying, does it? Maybe we try differently, or in other ways, but rejection shouldn't impede being creative. Or rather, it will impede one form of creativity (if you don't get the money, opportunity or platform to do something you can't well go and just do it anyway), but hopefully not all of one's creativity.
Doors open, doors close. Allow yourself to feel a bit let down for a day then keep on keeping on. Maybe find a way to poke fun at the absurdity of the whole circus. I think that's a good way to cope.