A stamp of approval

The fol­low­ing post is part of a peri­odic series I call “Words of Wis­dom: insights and inspi­ra­tion”. The series will con­tain real sto­ries about real artists and their jour­neys of growth as they face the per­sonal and cul­tural chal­lenges of bring­ing their visions to us.

We all face chal­lenges in life, because life is life, it is hap­pi­nesses jux­ta­posed with sad­ness, courage jux­ta­posed with fear, growth jux­ta­posed with flat lin­ing. My own jour­ney of 60+ years brought me to the point of rec­og­niz­ing that the true high in life is not the flat line paral­y­sis that fear brings, instead it is in the inner chal­lenge to face down fear and dark­ness through the courage to grow and live. Life is not nor ever will be a flat line, it is instead a series of ups and downs with some peace­ful flats in between.

Prob­a­bly the great­est chal­lenge we as artists face is not actu­ally learn­ing the mechan­i­cal tech­niques of our par­tic­u­lar medium, but rather the inner jour­ney that reveals our voice, our vision of life. That jour­ney can be likened to Perse­phone’s yearly jour­ney from light into dark and back again. As cre­atives, we need to feel in order to express our visions, because it that sen­si­tiv­ity to the under­ly­ing energy present in our world that gives form to our voices. With that increased sen­si­tiv­ity comes emo­tional vul­ner­a­bil­ity, expos­ing us to the opin­ions and judg­ments of  those who are threat­ened by our explo­rations and dis­cov­er­ies. They are the flat lin­ers, their world has no chal­lenges and their lives and voices offer lit­tle to the rest of the world.

This series is ded­i­cated to those on their own jour­ney from light to dark and back. Their voices are the ones that help us move for­ward, help us grow for they are the bea­cons that show us the way through their courage and persistence.

This first install­ment is an exam­ple of such a jour­ney, of the courage to face demons and strike them down. It chron­i­cles Sarah’s bat­tle with her demons of rejec­tion by a gallery she sought rep­re­sen­ta­tion by. It also illus­trates the impor­tance of get­ting to know and value your own voice along with accep­tance that your voice is… your voice, your unique take on the world and does  not nec­es­sar­ily rep­re­sent every one.

Sarah’s demons are not nec­es­sar­ily any dif­fer­ent than those faced by most of us who cre­ate, we all have our own dark voices of judg­ment and we all have our ways of qui­et­ing it as well. Shar­ing the expe­ri­ence, the jour­ney, and the even­tual vic­tory over those voices is not only inspi­ra­tional it is also impor­tant. Bear­ing wit­ness to each oth­ers growth and chal­lenges gives us the strength to both rec­og­nize and defeat our own demons.

That shar­ing also rep­re­sents a level of grace and grat­i­tude to those who stick by us, encour­age us and sup­port us.

I just want to thank every­one for the sup­port and the com­ments yes­ter­day. It was really, truly helpful.

I also think I fig­ured out what was going on inter­nally and why this was both­er­ing me so much. Because as so many peo­ple have said, it’s just one per­son. One. Per­son. So it didn’t even make sense to me why it was get­ting to me so badly.

This morn­ing, I had an epiphany.

There’s a story that I often (sub­con­sciously) tell myself

This is how it goes:

I’m not a real artist. I’m a hack. I didn’t go to art school. I didn’t study in Europe, and get an MFA. I don’t paint what’s trendy. I’m not edgy or cool. I’m not really part of the art world. And I’m not actu­ally a “real artist”.

A “real artist” has a sta­ble of gal­leries, gets lots of press and reviews, and has a whole army of Col­lec­tors with a cap­i­tal C.

And most impor­tantly, this per­son has been accepted. They have got­ten the stamp of approval from the art world that they can sell art because they’re “Good Enough.” Gal­leries have said that their work is good enough to be sold, that they have what it takes.

So the way this story played out was, I  had got­ten the stamp of approval from this gallery – it was a badge of hon­our. I was finally a “Real Artist.”

And then when my work was rejected, the whole plot of the story fell apart. Sud­denly, I wasn’t a Real Artist any­more. I was back to being the hack that sev­eral older artists had implied. I was back to being dismissed.

I told myself I wanted to stop sell­ing my art because I wanted to focus my entire being on study­ing and learn­ing. That’s a lie. The real rea­son I wanted to stop sell­ing was because I didn’t think I had a right to. I didn’t think it was fair to try to sell peo­ple low qual­ity art made by a Not Real Artist. I didn’t have the stamp of approval. The “art world” had revoked my license.

It’s a story I’ve been telling myself for a really long time.

Don’t worry, I real­ize that it’s bull­shit. There is no such thing as a Stamp of Approval. The “Art World” is really a con­struct of my own imag­i­na­tion. And as for being a “Real Artist”? I’m the only per­son who can define that. No one’s going to accept me until I accept myself.

It’s still hard, mind you. Even know­ing that it’s bull­shit, I still feel like I don’t have a right to sell my work until I’m “good enough” (another totally bull­shit term). I think it’s a pat­tern that I’ll be unrav­el­ing over time.

In a way, it’s not my fault – I was raised in a sys­tem where get­ting stamps of approval were kind of the point. Get those straight As, those gold stars, those first prizes. It’s accepted knowl­edge that the more let­ters you have after your name, the more intel­li­gent, the bet­ter you must be, right?

Or not. I’m try­ing to unlearn the point of view that it’s not how you get the knowl­edge that’s impor­tant but that you have the knowl­edge. That I don’t have to jump through a series of some­one else’s hoops just to prove that I’m worthy.

The story is still say­ing that the gallery owner’s rejec­tion of my work is a sign that I am still not ready, still not wor­thy, still not good enough. That I still have no right to be an artist, and cer­tainly no right to sell my work.

But what’s life, if not a work in progress?