do I deserve this?
part one of notes on a writing residency & rejection letters as creative practice
last call! registration for the “Is This Art?” collage workshop closes today, 1/17
SURPRISE! as I move posts from Ghost sometimes I accidently send them to you twice. Welcome to my life.
This week, the essay is free for all, no paywall. Also, it is a two parter, so come back next week for the conclusion.
Many years ago I applied for a Thing. I was not in the habit of applying for Things so I didn’t yet know you need to apply, apply, apply, and gather many rejections before you receive a golden ticket—an acceptance letter. As a teen, I had a few bits of poetry published and a small feature when I was 20\. I developed an internal story of If I Apply, I Will Be Accepted. This was a bit of luck, a bit of skill and a bit of applying to Things with low barriers for acceptance. It is likely I was also rejected sometimes but I maintained confidence in my abilities and in the abilities of my friends well into my thirties.
This Thing I was applying for in my late 20’s was big. It would’ve required me to move 700 miles away for a minimum of three years. The program encouraged folks to stay in the area afterwards, seeding the local artist community. It required a phone interview. It would have changed the trajectory of my life, geographically, socially and professionally. While awaiting the committee’s decision, I prepared. I worked two jobs including double shifts washing dishes in a sushi restaurant. After work, a friend and I busked in the French Quarter until we had enough money for enough whisky so we could sleep. It was a dark and lonely time. The city was cold and bleak. It was hard to make plans or have hope. I was applying because I needed a Path. I probably needed to get out of New Orleans, but like all complicated relationships, I couldn’t imagine leaving without a reason or a place to go. Despite the long hours at work, my goal of buying a car felt unattainable. I considered that if I got the Thing, I would be living on a mountain top, with six others in a house, and possibly no car. I worked and waited, washing dishes in the grimy back room. Between orders, I sat on the soap bucket and read James Baldwin. Sometimes I tried to communicate with the cook, who only spoke Cantonese. Everyone called him Uncle. I never learned his name.
At the same time a good friend had written a book and was sending it to agents and publishers, to be rejected over and over. This friend sent me a note: they are intimidated by our greatness.
After the longest winter, and multiple interviews, I was told that I was not awarded the Thing. I don’t remember if was a letter or email or a phone call; that time was a liminal space for communication. A few months later, I met someone on the committee for choosing Things and she assured me that it had been between me and one other. She gently shared that the other candidate was also a printer, that our art work was similar and they could not accept us both. That news soothed the rough rejection that I was pretending was fine.
At the same time a good friend had written a book and was sending it to agents and publishers, to be rejected over and over. This friend sent me a note: they are intimidated by our greatness.
It didn’t matter if it was true. That note reminded me it was not that I had failed, but that the committee had failed in not choosing me. That note is still on my desk.
Years later and I keep an email folder of rejection letters. I thought of printing them out and lining my walls, but I kept moving my studio and my office, so they remain digital texts. I liked having them together. I liked the containment, the physicality; I can easily count how many times I’ve been rejected this year. Somehow, as the number increases, I feel stronger, growing immune to the disappointment, like a slow poisoning to build immunity . I applied for many things in the past few years and was rejected from nearly every single one. I keep applying and file away the eventual rejections.
Last month, writer and teacher Priscilla Thomas offered a one day workshop on creating blackout poems with rejection letters. This is a type of found poem, where a writer takes a text, and removes, erases, or covers text until a poem emerges. Blackout poems are deceptively simple in theory. You have a text. You discover words within the text that give it a new meaning. You erase everything else. Or cover with white or black or crayons Mary Ruefle is well known for hers, she is said to look at the page and see what floats to the surface.
Blackout poems are deceptively simple in theory.
In class, I struggled, using recent text messages from family as potential fodder (it was a trap—just go to therapy). The following week, in the hours of downtime at my job I transformed a few: the lengthy and almost condescending three paragraphs from a residency for which I will apply again, the brief and encouraging email from a residency for which I was not a great fit, and a brief note from a clearly overwhelmed residency for whom I am currently working on my application.
Applying for residencies demands that you explain why you are worthy of time to work. In general, under capitalism, a worker is paid when something is produced or a service is offered. Which means that artists and writers generally don’t get paid to work, only for what they have created. We get paid for what we Produce. If part of a creative practice includes research and walking and writing and looking at art and making garbage and learning and eating and ruminating and experimenting and self-doubt and staring over and more experiments, before we we finish a Thing we can sell, it is clear that, within the definition of paid and hourly wage, we are not compensated for our time. There are exceptions. But the financial divide is great. And so we wager for time to work, uninterrupted, without distraction, without outside prodding about our process or production,. We justify our needs and demands. We must also feel grateful for the opportunity, grateful that we are offered something, sometimes for free, and then carry the guilt of not feeling grateful enough in a world where many are unhoused, unfed, are driven from their homes and killed. We want to do our work. We must prove we are worthy, be grateful but not too invested. We must ask for something, be worthy of everything and want nothing.
We get paid for what we Produce. If part of a creative practice includes research and walking and writing and looking at art and making garbage and learning and eating and ruminating and experimenting and self-doubt and staring over and more experiments, before we we finish a Thing we can sell, it is clear that, within the definition of paid and hourly wage, we are not compensated for our time.
Applying for residencies, or grants, is to demand payment for your work, a demand for acknowldgement of the value of your time. It takes an enormous amount of confidence, a sense of entitlement or an ability to detach. It requires pure ego or no ego. Those in-between find ways to apply with support from colleagues and friends, through coaching and groups or by compartmentalizing our worries that we aren’t good enough. Or we make blackout poems with our rejection letters and insist that they are fools for not accepting us. We might not be able to admit we deserve this but we keep asking for it.
In October of last year, I applied for a low stakes residency and was awarded time in December.
It is not a competitive residency—held at a campground, lodge and vintage trailer park, the residency offers a reduced rate for artists who want to stay during the week. The discount was enough that I could afford to go for five nights— a luxury! Five nights is enough to settle in, have a good day, and off day, and take a nap. Five nights! I wrote a short list of goals. I packed the notebooks I have been writing in for the past two years, a few writing guidebooks and a crate of food. I brought a box of my favorite tea, a favorite mug and an extra sweater.
An artist residency is an opportunity to step out of your routine. It is an opportunity to work without obligations of money or family or deadlines. You can sleep and work as you like. In the past three years I had taken a few brief trips that functioned like self-designed residencies: I rented a hotel or cabin with a desk. I brought food and tea. I chose places near rivers or the ocean or in a forest so I could walk and listen to birds and watch water. This was my first official residency. I was still paying but it was affordable and there were other residents staying at the same time. It felt more intentional than the hotel where I spent my first “residency” writing all day in the cafe.
The day I left town, it was clear and cold. I stopped at the library to pick up books, the grocery store for one last treat. Finally heading for the highway with a cup of tea, the sun was already low. I thought about my list of goals: a simplified list, focused. Feasible. I was proud of my reasonable list of goals and immediately realized it was not what I wanted. I didn’t want to spend my time working on a list. I decided that rest and writing was enough. The notion that a residency was earned or deserved stuck in me, the barbs of production and accomplishments sticking in my need for rest and space to allow for creativity, for new ideas and a differenent perspective. On the road with the sun low, I let it go. Rest and writing. Everything else would come.
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