Pain is a great teacher. I mentioned earlier that I keep a pillowcase full of rejection letters in my studio as a reminder of the role that failure played in galvanizing me. If you’re afraid of looking like a fool, then please quit now. Society doesn’t look to artists for sound, responsible decision making; our job is to strip naked and stand in traffic. Early in my career, I sent out hundreds of envelopes full of slides to galleries, and all of them were returned, some without as much as a form letter. It was depressing, but I kept going; all it takes is one nibble.
A prominent New York dealer left a message on my answering machine in the early 1990s requesting that I come to the gallery in person. Could this be a meeting to talk about representation? I got a haircut, showered, put on a luxurious black turtleneck, and took the R train to Prince Street in the heart of SoHo. I bounded up to the front desk with a toothy grin and introduced myself to the receptionist, a dour little man wearing an even more luxurious black turtleneck. Without making eye contact, he held out my sheet of slides as if it were a used condom. Wait, it gets worse. Affixed to them was a yellow Post-it note that read, “Don’t let this guy come near me,” signed by the gallery owner. He didn’t even have the decency to remove the note. I was humiliated. Ten years later, that same dealer expressed interest in my work, so I did what any self-respecting artist would do: I wrote “Go Fuck Yourself” on a Post-it and sent it to him.
Sometimes humiliation is paired with physical pain. At a meeting with a prestigious midtown dealer, I pulverized a 1929 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair when I sat down. At 245 pounds, I’m what people refer to as a “chair-breaker” and have crushed many of them at dinner parties, restaurants, and on the beach. There is simply no way to look sexy while fumbling to stand up like a newborn foal, dropping papers all over the floor, and putting a chair back together in stunned silence.
I’ve made a fool of myself in front of even larger crowds too. My first public slide lecture was a disaster because I planned to “speak from the heart” and instead blanked in front of two hundred people. Each click of the projector was like an ice pick to the scalp. Now I never take the stage without notes. Here are the lessons I learned the hard way: When speaking in public, always have a bottle of water, do a sound check an hour before to familiarize yourself with the equipment, and appoint someone to sit nearby in case of a technical issue. As you speak, skim the foreheads of the audience, but avoid eye contact, because you’ll only see the guy getting REM sleep.
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.