Exhibiting your work in galleries also opens you up to professional rejection. Over the years, I’ve had stacks of reviews—most of them great, some raves, and a few pure suck. Edward Sozanski, chief art critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, disliked my work so much that the dealer wouldn’t even let me read the review; she bought all the newspapers within a few blocks of the gallery. She needn’t have worried. I never read my reviews—not out of apathy, but because I already possess enough self-doubt that I don’t need it articulated by a writer. A few years later, Kenneth Baker, critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, gave me a rave review that my dealer said was one of the finest he’d ever read in that paper. I was grateful but didn’t read that one either. A good review can be just as disruptive as a bad one because it’s natural to want to repeat good behavior.
Art critics have a job to do, and so do I. Mine is to show up every day and make my paintings regardless of whether people like them or not. Worrying about critical reception is harmful because it removes the option of failure. Every painting fails before it succeeds. Mine look gorgeous the first day, but they nosedive quickly, so I spend the next six months trying to get them to hum again. I still get rejected, and it stings for exactly 1.75 days, but I’m a professional. Processing rejection is just another important layer in my tackle box, no different from drawing the human figure or mixing violet and yellow to make brown. Failure is not a lack of ability but a badge of proof that you’re working and learning. There are many things to fear in life (viruses, plane crashes, bagel pizza), but there is no upside to a fear of failure.
Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Feel Your Own Pain
Shortly after moving to New York City, I was in a downtown studio with an older, well-known painter and a few friends. He gathered us in a circle and asked, “Who here is a painter?” My hand shot up instinctively. He peered over his bifocals and said, “OK, you can leave.” The room fell silent as I awkwardly made my way to the staircase with a lump in my throat. My brain didn’t know whether to make anger or tears. At the bottom stair, I realized something that changed my life; as if I’d turned on windshield wipers in a storm, suddenly everything appeared clear and close. Don’t be the first to raise your hand. Don’t be so sure. There will always be someone better than you, but there can never be anyone like you. At the bottom of a staircase in a downtown loft in 1988, I gave myself permission to stop trying so hard. When I learned to expect nothing, I got everything.
Art schools teach critical thinking and technique, tools designed for the upside of a career. But what about the shit storms? What about the creative blocks, lack of money, lack of space, bad reviews, no reviews, rejection letters, bad business moves, and general feelings of inadequacy—and that’s not even counting the stacks and stacks of lousy paintings that require storage. We must own all of it. An artist is like an onion; peel away the layers, and there is no more onion. Doubt and uncertainty are essential layers in a complete tackle box.
Every painter needs a constituency for pessimism, a person or persons with whom they can be negative away from the pressures of the art-world clown car. Your constituency should be made up exclusively of artists because they’re the only ones who understand the day-to-day stuff; nonartists mean well when they offer advice like, “Why don’t you just get into the Whitney Biennial?” or “You should get the New York Times to review your show.” However, they don’t understand that an artist needs the entire rotation of life’s experiences, good and bad, to tell the truth. Regular jobs demand your peak performance, but only art requires your crappiest, most miserable self too. John Lennon said, “No one can harm you, feel your own pain.” Without negativity, you can’t be delusional, and self-delusion is what makes art possible, for every creative endeavor begins in a flash of googly-eyed crazy. How could human beings perform delicate brain surgery or write string quartets without first believing that they mattered and are going to live forever?
My early paintings were awful. I never wanted to be great, just less awful. Success is too often confused with popularity; it’s gross that a film has to gross $100 million to be successful. Art doesn’t work that way. True success is curiosity and effort. Popularity is given and taken away by others, but curiosity and effort are yours alone.
Painting has never been more vital than it is right now, and we are living in it. As I said before, painting is local knowledge; it plants a stick in the mud that says, “We were here,” and lays a trail of crumbs so that we may find our way back home again. Although painting can educate, protest, memorialize, confront, and provoke, it cannot change the world; but it can alter one person’s world by filling his or her remaining moments of life with supreme quality. If you reach one person, then you’ve made the earth a better place. Don’t be afraid to make bad paintings. Die a little death now and then; you’ll be okay. If you make a mistake, scrape it off and start over. No one cares if you screw up. There are no talent scouts. You’re on your own. Your work doesn’t have to be groundbreaking—it doesn’t even have to be good, but it must continue. So lock your door and make your own clear seeing place. It’s easier than you think. I’ve told you how I did it. Now it’s your turn to do it better.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my editors, Richard Koss and Dara Kaye. Thank you also to Rachel Christenson for her superb design, and Courtney Calon, Meghan Harvey, and Girl Friday Productions for their expert guidance and attention to every detail.
Special thanks to:
Robert & Cheryl Fishko
Jerald & Mary Melberg
John Raimondi & Ralph Cantin
Gregory Amenoff
Nancy Toomey
Timothy Tew
Nicola Lorenz
Niccolo Brooker
Jillian Casey
Louis Newman
Karen Winer
Kevin Dao
Mary Hurt
Gaybe Johnson
Chris Clamp
Grace Cote
Jules Bekker
Corky Davis
Randall Morris & Shari Cavin
Spencer Throckmorton
Paul & Helen Anbinder
Steve & Maddy Anbinder
David Shirey
Chuck Close
Darby Bannard
Ursula Von Rydingsvard
Judy Pfaff
Wolf Kahn
Robert Rauschenberg
Theresa Duran
Phil Freshman
Kathy Schnapper
Ron Porter & Joe Price
Jeff & Jodi Salter
Robert Gilson
The 92nd Street Y Art Center
The Fulbright Program
Irish Fulbright Association
Robert Gamblin
Steve Bates
Tippy Stern-Brickman & Michael Brickman
Joe Santore
Basil Alkazzi
Helen Du Bois
Amr Shaker
Susanna Coffey
Joyce Robinson
Dennis Elliott
David Ebony
John Dorfman
Martica Sawin
John & Kim Rutenberg
Michael & Melissa Rutenberg
Jim & Joan Peck
Fritz & Jenny Reinbold
Mark & Colleen Reuland
Valerie Morris
Karen Jones
Arthur McDonald
Mark Sloan
Douglas Ashley
Steve Rosenberg
David Kowal
Barbara Duval
Alan Lokos & Susanna Weiss
Russ Gerlach
H. Allen Holmes
Arne Svenson & Charles Burkhalter
Virginia Friedman
Jim & Betsy Chaffin
Spring Island Trust
Br
ookgreen Gardens
Paul Matheney
Jeffrey Day
Tom Starland
Declan McGonagle
The Irish Museum of Modern Art
James Quinn
Herbert Khaury
Ernie & Joanne Garcia
About the Author
Widely considered to be one of the finest American painters of his generation, Brian Rutenberg has spent forty years honing a distinctive method of compressing the rich color and form of his native coastal South Carolina into complex landscape paintings that imbue material reality with a deep sense of place. He is a Fulbright Scholar, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, and a Basil Alkazzi USA Award recipient, and he has had over two hundred exhibitions throughout North America. Rutenberg’s paintings are in private collections all over the world and are included in such public collections as the Butler Institute of American Art, Yale University Art Gallery, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Peabody Essex Museum of Art, Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina State Museum, and many others. He lives and works in New York City with his wife, Kathryn, and their two children.
For more about Brian Rutenberg, please visit www.brianrutenbergbooks.com and www.brianrutenbergart.com.
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