Giving Up is NOT an Option or is it?

Not for me, but rejection can take it's toll most particularly when there is an onslaught of events, related and unrelated to one's art.   I read two things last week that made me wonder. Georg Baselitz repeated the same old tired self fulfilling prophesy that women can't paint (yea-groan 2013 and we still hear this crap about what women can and can't do) and a Guardian News  article about Kitaj who wrote in one of his last diary entries before his suicide, "Failure, failure as always".
 It is one thing to have haters, or be rejected from a couple of shows but when it is peers, and/or art institutions who predoom you to failure, savage your work or you personally, I think why bother. What hope do I, by virtue of being a woman, have as an artist. Nowt probably, but I don't care. Goerg can have his antiquated opinion, stuff it in his pipe and smoke it.

RB Kitaj
"The Killer-Critic Assassinated by his Widower, Even 1997"
Image source: Jewish Museum Berlin
I suppose the story about Kitaj disturbs me because he had dedicated his life to his art and had such a powerful influence, and yet! The savage atttack on his art and him personally went beyond the pale and proved devastating.

There are some who seem to think that because an artist puts themself out there via their work it is open season, but I just think that is their excuse to be a nasty little shit.

Meanwhile in the Studio
 I am experimenting, and failing, playing and failing, and loving every step of the way, even when it can be a royal pain in the arse at times. 

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one 
Charles Horton Cooley



Comments

Ilix said…
Interesting.... thanks for sharing.
Beanie Mouse said…
The only real failure is not trying. Any other opinion, based on gender or otherwise, gets placed at the bottom of the manure heap to be eaten by bugs and then crapped out again. Fingers in ears, blah blah blah not listening, don't give a f*** anyway, now what was I in the middle of? Ah yes, that's much more fun.....!!!

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