That haunting question was given breath one day when I opened the rejection letter from my art school’s graduate program. I was devastated.
I probably endured all the five stages of grief. Denial and depression I remember especially well. “What do you mean I’m not good enough?! What am I going to do now, I don’t know how to do anything else?! How am I going to tell my wife and young daughter that all those years were wasted?”
The one stage I could not reconcile with was that of “acceptance.” I just couldn’t accept their indictment. I mean, these were people whom I respected, administrators and professors, but I was an artist damn it! It’s what I had always been.
Anger set in. “Where were they when I sat painting days on end at my easel as a boy. Where were they when I had to drag myself outside because I was afraid someone might "see me," the anxiety was so debilitating (and let me tell you about social anxiety--it's a dream killer). Where were they when I was working full time and going to school full time, for five straight years, receiving scholarships and accolades from my professors and finally earning a BFA degree, all the while fighting against a red/green color deficiency in order to see my work clearly. Where were they when my wife’s hair was falling out from the chemotherapy and I told her I was going to quit and she said don’t you do it, don’t you ever quit!” How did they think they could smother that tiny volcano inside of me, that need to express. They can’t hold that in! I can’t even hold it in!
Anger turned to resolve. Maybe it was plain stubbornness, or maybe I really did believe in myself after all, but I put that rejection letter in a frame and hung it on my studio wall. It was going to bear witness to me becoming the artist I knew I was, and I proceeded to paint my way into galleries from Provincetown all the way down to Charleston, earning inclusion into the NOAPS 29th Best In America Exhibition along the way.
I’m better than I would have ever been because of that letter, as an artist and as a person. I wouldn't change it. I still don’t feel I’m good enough, still searching for that mysterious perfection, I guess. But it’s mystery, too, that draws me to a scene and reveals a power within me that needs to come out. Mystery, revealed through relationships, that’s what painting is. I think that’s what love is too.
I don’t think about it though, when I’m painting. I think about nothing really except pulling form out of darkness, giving shape to light. The meaning takes care of itself. I aim to just respond, painting what I feel. You have to trust that, and not be afraid to let that little volcano out.
