Complete denial
“Every success story can be told as a series of failures.”
Has it been a week for anyone else?
I’m ready to put August to bed already, and it’s barely started.
But I did recently read this (old) piece on old masters—about artists in their 80s and 90s who are still working. There were many lessons that I appreciated—one artist didn’t sell a single painting until she was 89!—but this one was maybe my favorite:
“I’m in complete denial, which I think is extremely useful.”
You have to be a little bit (or a lot?) in denial to be an artist, to push past the rejections, the close-calls, the bad reviews, the blockages, the naysayers who don’t understand your work or see value in it, the can’t-get-your-foot-in-the-door gatekeeping, the small money (or no money), and on and on.
Put another way: “Every success story can be told as a series of failures.” (Sarah Manguso)
You have to make your own meaning and your own definitions of success, which often fall outside the confines of late capitalism, while somehow also being able to a…