Been pondering the consequences of acceptance. In an artist’s case this usually means your work is accepted to a juried show or you are given a solo show or your work is written about or featured in a magazine, etc. On the surface it’s great, I mean it gives your work legitimacy, right?… Like super, I’m not the only one who thinks my art is worth a shit. We all strive for acceptance from others for our own self-esteem, or to help us feel like we belong I guess, but I also think there are some weird psychological consequences from acceptance as well.
What I mean is once you start succeeding in any given field sometimes, at least for me it adds to my insecurity. The feeling of being fraudulent. The feeling that I’m really not a very good artist or I steal too much from other people’s work, or why did they accept that, it’s total shit… etc. Or in case of my day job, I’m not really qualified to do this and I suck, why would you ask me to take on this responsibility when I will just fail.
Why do we as humans feel this way? I have no idea why, honestly. I have been fortunate to have done some relatively strenuous searching for meaning and spirituality in my life and that has been helpful in keeping me grounded. I still have the same insecurities, the same self-fraudulent feelings but I am better able to step back away from myself and say to myself that is just the insecurity and self-loathing talking, don’t listen to those monsters. Or as Dory would say “just keep swimming, just keep swimming”
The whole reason I am on my current artistic path and striving toward greatness is because of a series of setbacks in my day job. I have a great job working for Lexus motor manufacturing in Georgetown Kentucky. We build the the Lexus ES350 and I work in quality assurance. I didn’t have setbacks because my skill set is lacking, or because my personality is not people friendly, or my soft skills are lacking, quite the opposite in fact. I am high level in all those things. I had setbacks because I am a very poor interviewer. Seems stupid right, but moving up in any company has so much to do with interviewing and so little to do with skills… But I ramble on… 3 or 4 bad interviews for various promotions and I went into reflection mode. I decided that I might be on the wrong path and that it was time I quit giving so much of my energy to a place that didn’t really seem to accept me. So, I bet on myself and am going ALL IN… It took a long time for me to reach this place, partly because I was never encouraged by anyone, not my wife, not my friends, not my children, not other artists. They really didn’t have time for that. I never could quite figure it out because I would look at my work and say fuck man this shit is fantastic, why am I not putting this out there more. Then insecurity would rear its ugly head and I would slink back down again and feel like Ah man that is garbage that is why there is no encouragement. Truth be told I did receive encouragement from my Mother and Father but they kind of have to do that so I couldn’t trust that. I did receive encouragement from Gordon Gildersleeve, a sculptor I deeply respect in Lexington. He was the one that made me think I need to do something with this talent. For that I am grateful. It took a minute but I am All in.
The following images will be featured in an international art and culture magazine based in the U.K
This piece will be featured in an international exhibition of abstract photography at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins Co.
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