There’s no sugarcoating it, rejection sucks!
Some people may believe that because I talk often about tenacity, perseverance, and showing up for ourselves that I might be impervious to the anguish of rejection, and those people would be wrong.
So far this year I’ve applied to three different open calls at three different art/creative events… and I was rejected by all three.
It kills me just as much as it would anyone else.
Like most artists, I put my heart and soul into my work, and when it’s rejected, it feels like someone stomped on that. I would love to say that I bounce back immediately, but that’s just not true. In those moments, I’m hobbled by the rejection, stalling my work for days if not weeks as I struggle to find some validation.
And then I remember I’m a grown adult with the knowledge and capability to set my own destiny. In no uncertain terms…
Fuck the Art Establishment
These people who make the decisions on whether one artist is more valid than another have no fundamental understanding of who we are as artists. They define us by a series of 3 to 5 images submitted with a puffed-up artist statement that we wrote in order to sound more appealing to them.
What kind of BS is that, really? They don’t know us, don’t understand us, and have no real concept of how our work affects others when seen. They make judgment calls based on their own biases.
As someone who has been on the juror panel of a couple of art shows, I can tell you unequivocally, the rationalization of these jury panels on who makes the cut and who doesn’t can be shallow, deeply biased, and downright brutal at times. That said, it can also be perfectly accurate, but only in that moment with that specific group of individuals.
Now, we can let these rejections define us and our paths, or we can decide that the art establishment has no bearing on our personal worth or the value of our work. And the best way for us to do that is to set up a system to promote, share, and sell our work directly to the people who want our art on their walls.
What Works for Me
My personal system consists of three nodes: My newsletter/blog, my YouTube channel, and my website which allows me to sell directly to collectors.
There are other, smaller nodes of course (Instagram, Skillshare, and Saatchi Art), but they are secondary to the main nodes always (or at least until they prove to be more viable than the others).
I’ve built my personal strategy in a way that takes advantage of my skills. I’m fairly decent on camera, would like to think my writing is compelling, and have no fear of the technology of websites and e-commerce platforms.
YouTube (and social media in general) helps me drive people to my newsletter. That newsletter gives me access to people’s inboxes, which I’ve personally found to be the best way to encourage sales.
I send out weekly newsletters with the intent of providing value to my readers and casually place links to my work where it doesn’t feel too intrusive, like this one:
Mag Bash Volume 1 Preorder
When orders go out, those people also get reminders to enjoy my YouTube channel, join my newsletter, and the cycle continues. I keep people within the fold so I can show up for them in ways that educate, entertain, and inform.
As that following grows, I establish a direct rapport with a group of people more inclined to buy from me based on this (para-social) relationship we’re building. This is the main reason why I’m looking to take The Hungry Artist to the next level, in order to foster more trust and appreciation from my readers.
I plan on talking more about the future development strategy of The Hungry Artist soon, but the short story is building a platform to help improve the lives of artists and creators in any way I can.
Your system may not look like mine. Your nodes might be different, and as long as they are set up in a way to drive people to buy from you, then get down with your bad self. That said, if your nodes don’t include a way to communicate directly with people (newsletter) and have them buy from you (e-commerce), then you may want to rethink your nodes.
We can’t tear down the establishment if we don’t build our own establishment first.
In the future, expect me to talk about all these nodes in detail. I think it’s important to share deep-dive information in order to demystify these things. As much as this article is about how I do things, ultimately I want to give as much information and insight as I can so you can feel good about charging fearlessly into the strategy.
And if this one was valuable to you, make sure to leave me a comment below to tell me what you plan on doing with your own node strategy.
