The Art of Facing Down Rejection

#Rejection #ArtandScienceofExpertise #Creativity #Expertise

Betty Goodwin often said that she did so poorly at school there was nothing else she would have wanted to do but make visual art.

And yet she is a great example of a creative artist whose career offers clues to navigating highly competitive fields.?

Rejection hurts so much.

A promotion, a lover, a lost contract, a child.

It feels like death.

Here’s an artful strategy from a master.

Goodwin was self-taught and chose to work in drawing and printmaking, when the big guns of the day were painters.?

While many artists were projecting confidence, she opted to show the cracks and transparent layers of her indecision.

An artist invites attention when she mounts a show. Art critics didn’t hesitate to attack.?

After her first one-person show in 1963 -

Betty Goodwin is a disappointment and this is due mainly to her academic amateurism.

After she exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts -

I find this an oppressive art which satisfies neither visually, not through communication.

Goodwin threw out much of her work - literally into the garbage - and deepened her sources.?

In 1971 she sent two prints for consideration to Riva Castleman at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.?

Acceptance would be a coup. According to The New York Times, Castleman was building

the world’s pre-eminent collection of modern and contemporary prints.?

The answer was no. Goodwin had to swallow more rejection.?This time, she showed her mettle.?

No shrivelling up from mortification.?She wrote a query to the museum.

Are you able to tell me why they were not accepted? I wonder whether some general policy decision eliminated the work from consideration or whether there were specific reasons relating directly to the work?

If that wasn’t gutsy enough, in her next sentence she took a surprising risk.

Here is Montreal-based Goodwin asking for an appointment to come down to meet with Castleman -

I’m working on a series of new prints and casting in cement which I would like to submit for the consideration of the acquisition committee. Since I find slides inadequate, could you give me a specific date to bring my portfolio down?

It worked. Castleman bough two prints and recommended her to the International Biennale of Prints in Tokyo.

Something had shifted within Goodwin. Suddenly the art world was opening up to her. She went on to have a stellar career marked by major exhibitions, prizes, Canada Council grants and books about her work.?

CTV produced a documentary that was screened at the International Festival of Films on Art.

I was (and am still) delighted to have been the presenter and writer of that documentary, Betty Goodwin:Pieces of Time.

We had weeks to talk, do interviews and shoot footage. ?She was gracious and sharing. I learned lessons from her that I use to this day. I carry her determination and her passion for creativity. I pass them on when I can.

Goodwin stared down rejection and found creative ways to open closed doors - like Evelyn Glennie.

In her imagery Goodwin shows her wounds, (especially those from the loss of her father when she was only 9 and of her son who died of a drug overdose at age 30).?

Most of us know the devastation of shattered dreams – with the unbearable hurt – and the feeling that we are going to die from shame, disappointment and embarrassment.

How could we believe that we can actually survive psychological danger (that feels so physical) to become stronger and express ourselves more fully?

Rejection needs to be mourned.?

Do that with people you love and trust.?

Talk it out. Share your feelings about what happened.?

Deep rejection can be mitigated through deep conversations.

I know it could sound trite - avoid taking the matter personally. There may be circumstances completely out of your control.?That's why Goodwin asked the MoMA if her rejection was a general policy matter. Or something more directly related to her work.

In the overall arc of your life, you will look back on this moment of devastation and feel – it wasn’t that bad. I learned. I grew. I carried on. I thrived.

Repost if this has helped you and follow me as I mull and muse on expertise.

I mentor and coach high-achievers in creative fields, in science, in healthcare, in academia, in leadership, in management, in the professions and in tech.

To recap the past few posts of the Art and Science of Expertise -

In Be the Voice That’s Known for Saying What Really Matters, we learn from Academy-award nominated screenwriter Nora Ephron how to get to what she called The Point.

In How to Access What Really Matters, we look at non-verbal ways to connect with your memories of those who made you who you are, so you can go even further.

And in The Nobel Prize-Winning Artist-Scientist Who Went from Delinquency to Expertise, we learn from the man who fathered a whole new branch of science by sticking with his inborn talent and adding it to new ways of doing original research.

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