We all know how good it feels to get an acceptance for a residency, grant, or another opportunity, but more often we face rejection. Kim Liao, a fiction writer and essayist, offers an important perspective change in “Why You Should Aim for 100 Rejections a Year.” Though she is a writer reflecting on literary submissions, there are some important takeaways that are useful for all artists:
Practice makes perfect. We’re taught to value quality over quantity, but actually, quality can be derived from quantity–from trying over and over again, with your best effort.
Submissions open up dialogue. Once you send it out, at least one person is looking at the work, thinking about it, and has to respond.
Uncouple “rejection” and “failure.” A rejection is actually an artifact of an achievement: making work, writing about it, and getting it in front of a curator, gallery, or institution!
- 🦁 Take the sting out of applying by seeking out rejections. If you’re looking forward to your rejection rather than fearing it, you’ll be more likely to submit.
- 🦁 It’s a numbers game. Submitting your work–thoughtfully–to as many places as you can increase your chances of moving forward.
- 🦁 Set a rejection goal! Can you make it to 100 this year?
For visual artists especially, the process of putting together submissions–selecting work, writing about it, understanding its importance and how it fits into curatorial ideas–can actually help push the work forward or spark the next project.
Need help meeting your goal? That’s what we’re here for! Hash it out during a one-on-one, get customized writing, or sign up for our self-paced workshops to create a complete portfolio of the writing you need.
