20th Annual New Jersey Small Works Show - REJECTION!

June 19 - July 17, 2009
Reception: Sat, June 20, 2-4 PM
For further information and directions please visit http://tasoc.org/framesgal.html

I will be going, but I didn't get in.

Why post it then?

Good question.

The answer?

REJECTION!

We all get rejected from time to time, it's a fact of life.

Leaning in for that first kiss and ending up on the cold, hard, floor.

Lifting your hand up when you know the answer in math class and not getting picked to write it on the blackboard (Which, in retrospect, turned out to be a good thing as you total suck at math and got the answer completely wrong).

Not getting picked to coach the girls topless volleyball team at your local College. There not being a girls topless volleyball team at your local College in the first place no matter how loudly you insist there is. You getting physically rejected from the grounds and placed not so nicely in a police cell to "sober up".

In the art world however, rejection is the norm. Yep. It's quite normal to get a ton of rejection letters. Instead of getting all depressed about it, I try to see it as a sign that I am doing something right.

Something right? You got rejected! Denied! Dismissed! Rebuffed! Excluded! Nothing! Nada! Do Not Pass Go! Collect Nothing! Thumbs Down! Kicked In The Teeth! Passed Over And Pissed On!

True, except maybe the pissed on bit. But the rejection letters remind me to get working on my call for entries.

Am I a glutton for punishment?

Maybe, and just in case my release word is "goats".

The truth is that an artist can expect a extremely high number of rejections compared to the low number of acceptances. It's true! I have a graph somewhere that proves it!...everyone believes in graphs...where did I put that stupid thing...maybe a PowerPoint presentation...

The cold hard fact is that you will get rejection letters, many, many, many, and a few more. It's just the way it is. You can take it personally if you want to. It doesn't matter. Just keep trying.

The more you try the more rejection letters you will get. What you do with them is up to you.

Plaster a wall.

Keep them in a memory box so you can look through them when your famous, or infamous, as the case my be.

Personally I use them for guest toilet paper. I'm not using the fancy TP on the kind of people I have over my house. Really, they could all use leaves for all I care and since I don't let them use my toilet and they are forced outside anyway they may as well. I don't think most of them use anything.

Regardless what you do with your rejections letters, and guest TP is always an option, one day you will find buried within those rejection letters an acceptance!

Be overly happy! Dance! Sing! Call everyone you know and tell them! Call all the other people that you don't know and tell them as well! Make a blog about it!


To sum it up:
The greater the number of call for entries and artist enters = the greater the number of free toilet paper the artist will receive + once in awhile one of those letters will be an acceptance letter , which is a good thing unless your trying for the free toilet paper.

BTW- Tabitha WAS accepted in the show. She will be using the guest toilet paper from now on.

Thea Clark & The New Jersey Metal Arts Guild

As usual I was reluctant to leave the house. I am a bit of a homebody, enjoying spending my time in the warm womb of my home and hopefully, sometimes, the studio (which is just as warm, though a bit less womby).

Unfortunately Tabitha insisted. Tabitha from Compulsive Jewelry, aka The Girlfriend, aka The Pants, aka Some Other Words That I Better Not Say.

So we headed out recently to the open studio of Thea Clark, with Tabitha smiling and thinking what a good time we will have and me grunting the opposite. My pessimism had nothing to do with Thea, quite the opposite as I am well aware of her work and enjoy it very much. No the pessimism is some learned behavior I must have picked up while I was busy living. Or I got it from a toilet seat. Either way, it's a vice that I haven't completely let go of yet. It's also one of those things that Tabitha says is, "Un-Stevie B.-Like", and that I need to "work on it".

So there we were in front of Thea's house, with me "working on it" and grinding my teeth.

"Fifteen minutes," I said between grinds.

"Huh?", Tabitha smiled. A blue bird landed on her arm and tweeted a love song while a brown bunny and a gopher danced in a circle around her legs. Well, that's how it seemed anyway.

"Fifteen minutes," I repeated. "Then we are out of here."

Tabitha didn't respond as she floated toward the door, rose petals leading her.



We left three hours later and only because Thea's daughter kept on insisting that she needed to be fed and that she, along with the rest of the family, was starving. Like kids need to eat everyday or something...Sheesh!

Obviously I ended up having a great time. Thea was warm and welcoming, and the three of us talked for what seemed like hours, which it was.

While at Thea's Tabitha and I also joined the New Jersey Metal Arts Guild.


So in the end what did I learn? That perhaps I shouldn't be so pessimistic about going out? That sometimes, despite myself, I end up having fun? That Tabitha is sometimes right?


BAH! I refuse to learn a thing!

Except that maybe sometimes it's really fun to be wrong.

-Stevie