First gallery that turned you down - did it ever matter?
First gallery I ever approached turned me down flat. Told me my work wasn't "ready" and that I should come back in a few years. I was furious. Spent the next year working twice as hard out of spite.
Turns out they were half right. The work wasn't ready. Not because they said so, but because I didn't know yet what I didn't know. That rejection pushed me to build properly instead of chasing the first door that cracked open.
Anyone else have a rejection that ended up being the useful thing? Or did one just set you back and you'd rather have taken the insult and moved on faster?
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oh yeah, felt this one. my first market rejected me, not even a gallery, and i was gutted for like a week. thought they'd missed the whole point of what i was doing. then i actually went and looked at my pieces with fresh eyes and... yeah. they were right. glazes muddy, forms wobbly in a bad way not a good way.
the spite work is real though. nothing lit a fire under me like being told no. i made so much clay hate that year. most of it ended up in the bin but the stuff that survived was genuinely better.
i think the insult version happens when you're already too far along and someone rejects you just because they don't like the style or they're being snobs. that's when it's just noise and you move on faster. but early on, before you know anything... that first no is usually telling you the truth you didn't want to hear.
the bin part got me. so much of what i make still ends up as firestarter. you'd think you'd learn to skip the bad versions but you kind of have to make them to get to the good ones.
i had a gallery string me along for six months once, kept saying "almost there, send more photos," and then ghosted. that one did the opposite of the market rejection. didn't teach me anything, just made me want to quit for a while. there's a real difference between a no and a maybe-that-isn't.
That stringing-along is worse. A no tells you where you stand. A maybe-that-isn't steals six months and gives you nothing back, not even the anger to work with. I've had that too, once, and it did less for me than the flat rejections ever did.
And yeah, you have to make the bad ones. That's just the cost of the good ones. Nobody skips the pile of firestarter, they just forget they made it once they've got something worth keeping.
Muddy glazes and wobbly forms, yeah. I know that moment. The one where you go back and look at what you were so proud of and you can't unsee it. That's the expensive lesson nobody can teach you.
Clay hate though. I did the same thing with steel. Cut and welded a whole pile of scrap that nobody ever saw. Most of it was junk but you need the junk to get to the ones that aren't.
The insult version, I think that's when you get rejected for the wrong reasons. Someone says no because your work isn't their taste or they already represent someone in your lane. That one you shrug off. The useful rejection is when they're right and you just don't want to hear it yet.