Ups and Downs

Well, everything doesn't always go my way, so it's important to talk about that as well as any successes.

Yes, I've been fortunate to win a number of awards, but there have more than plenty of times that I've been passed over or outright rejected. When I was first starting out more than a decade or so ago, I remember getting letters back from the galleries that I was applying for telling me that my application had all kinds of things wrong with it.

One of the most glaring was my handwritten notes (front, back, dimensions) on the slides (anyone remember them?) I was sending out. I don't have the best of handwriting to begin with and being amped up on coffee and filling out my applications during my lunch breaks from the mortgage company didn't help matters any.
Nonetheless, I persevered, learned from my mistakes and keep at it.

So, just recently, I got a nice award in cash at a small local show, but got totally ignored for a big show where I've taken top honors and first place a combined total of 3 times. Getting ignored even for the small awards felt like a really big injustice, but I've got to remember that for all the times that I've been a juror, there are others who've not liked my choices for awards.

Ultimately, it is up to one or a small group of people that make these choices and you've just got to learn to roll with them.

So, I've got to take my lumps too and move on to the next project.

Cheers!