We regret to inform you…
You’ve gotta hate letters that start that way. It is like biting into the perfect apple and finding a worm. Yep, rejection sucks. Every artist gets rejected.
While pondering how to do to expand and improve ArtAndArtDeadlines.com for the upcoming year, it occured to me that Rejection Letters are a subject of fascination for many. Why don’t we try to take something personal and depressing and turn it into something great?
…A positive way to learn.
That’s right readers…I want your Rejection Letters.
Send me your letters with your name and address obscured (or I can obscure them for you), and I will build a page to catalog all the letters by gallery or show.
Sharing our rejection letters could serve several purposes:
1. COMMISERATION: You won’t feel so alone when you get 3 rejections a week.
2. RESEARCH: The letters can serve as research on shows and galleries–Step #3 in the popular AAAD post The Art of Cooking also known as How to Get an Art Show.
3. HUMOR: Some of them are hilarioius.
4. WARNING: If you read between the lines, sometimes Rejection Letters can be a great warning that a gallery is just not your cup o’ tea.
So, what do you think? Start submiting your rejection letters (and emails) to me at SubmitArt@ArtAndArtDeadlines.com. Iwould prefer that you send the letters to me AFTER obscuring your name and contact information, but rest assured that I will take every effort to make sure this is an uplifting experience. No one wins if you feel embarrased.
As an added incentive, I will give anyone
that sends me a Rejection Letter a FREE entry
into the $2 Art Contest for that month!
After this blog post goes live, I will create a Rejection Page with this blog entry as its content until the letters roll in (assuming you’re interested).
Here’s one of my letters from the Lake County Discovery Museum’s Postcard Art Competition in 2007. It is a kind letter (sweet, but not entertaining), but I’ll dig through to find some that are more interesting soon.