I deserve a rejection

in ,

Don’t leave me hanging

When I decided to make ceramics full-time and quickly found myself overwhelmed and directionless, I realized I needed a more granular plan than “make pottery → be successful.” So, at the start of every year, I began to write down three to five tangible, achievable goals ranging in complexity from something I knew I could do, to something that was quite a stretch. In my first year, this was the list:

Get 10 rejections
Get into 1 show
Publish an article

Gamifying rejection as an incentive to put my work out there went surprisingly well, and I began applying to shows and acquainting myself with the slow-burning angst of waiting for an answer. That was the chafing little grain of sand around which this here pearl of wisdom at last formed.

Because, you see, getting rejections was harder than I imagined. I'm not talking about being rejected, that was easy peasy. I mean actually receiving the rejection: the news, the update, the answer, the no. Unless my work was accepted, I often didn't hear back at all, and pieced together the outcome from public evidence: a gallery's instagram post congratulating the selected artists, someone celebrating their own acceptance, or simply the opening date passing. Eventually, I started emailing the organizers to ask for updates. Some didn't even reply to that. The more it happened, the more it grated on me.

I estimate the average application fee for a show or residency call to be around $30. In my first year, were I the budgeting type then, I would have had to earmark at least $300 for that. It’s not nothing, but this is not a rant against submission fees. Apart from the substantial expense of organizing and running shows, residencies, and other selection-based programs, the call and review process is, in and of itself, costly—time, labor, coordination, overhead, compensating curators and invited jurors, etc. If submission fees are a stream of revenue, by necessity or by choice, great. Make it work. Make a profit! I'm happy you're creating this opportunity for me. (There are people whose entire business model is collecting submission fees, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are organizers offering sliding scales, or waiving fees altogether. My point applies.)

Now that we've acknowledged money and the business aspect, let's be honest about what that means. The human connection and the spirit of the clay community nurture my soul, truly, but until I can pay for my application with vibes, the call/submission exchange is a transaction, not a favor. Setting aside the larger context of the opportunity, a call is an offer to have my work considered. I might even argue that, distilled down to its most basic, a call could be a service. What I am paying for with my submission is not the acceptance—I am paying for the evaluation. The decision is the deliverable, and a no is as much a part of it as a yes.

It's not unreasonable to expect that all applicants be contacted at the end of the selection process. This should be built into the plan. I know you have my email, and it's probably already in a spreadsheet. There are plenty of ways to automate a simple notification, and if all else fails, copy-and-paste should do.

This is a cynical take, I realize. A tad severe. It is also about professionalism and mutual respect, and about affirming that my effort and my money are not just incidental.

In lieu of a notification, I'll accept a refund.