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“I Didn’t Win the Prize, Now (So) What?”
by Ira Goldberg Executive Director of the Art Students League of New York
As the executive director of a prominent art school, I often
serve on juries for art exhibitions and competitions. I also
want to say at the outset that as a painter, I have also submitted
work to many juried shows and have had my share
of rejections as well as acceptances. Recently I judged the
Chelsea International Art Competition at Agora Gallery, in
which the works of 40 artists were selected for the exhibition
and other venues. Several artists won cash awards, but
hundreds of artists went away dejected, disappointed, or
with only the minor satisfaction of having tried and failed.
For those artists the questions arise, “Why didn’t I win?
“Why didn’t I win? How
can they not see how
good I am? How can I
do better next time?”
How can they not see how good I am? How can I do better
next time?” Of course, the essential issue behind these
questions—“What is art?”—is a subject more appropriate
for 150,000 words than for 1,500. Below are some thoughts
about getting back to work after a disappointment and getting
ready for the next submission.
First Step: failure is an option. Entering competitions is
important. It keeps one “in the game”. Accepting rejections
is just as important. Failure is necessary if an artist is going
to advance and find his or her signature—the qualities
that make an artist’s expression unique. But finding one’s
voice doesn’t come from conjuring something no one ever
did before. It comes from working through problems and
pushing the canvas envelope to see how far you can go
with color, line and design. Art, perhaps more than any
other endeavor, requires a willingness to fail. Failure is part
of the learning process.
I remember teaching a summer children’s class at the
League and watching 12-year-olds working meticulously
copying comic book images. After an hour of non-stop
work, one of the boys tore up his drawing. “Why did you do
that?” I asked. “I messed up,” was his reply. “You’re supposed
to mess up!” I told him. Exploration and discovery
are integrated in the creation of art. We don’t stamp out a
product. Every time we approach the easel or the sculpture
stand we are challenged anew. That means that sometimes
we fall flat on our face. Artists who allow themselves
to fail learn from that failure. That’s how we evolve.
Patience, unlearning, and learning the language. Everyone
wants to be deemed a genius, the next Picasso or
the next Rembrandt. Students and emerging artists have a
fantasy that somehow they’ll wake up one day, everything
will fall into place, and every piece they make will sell for
four or more figures. The truth is that art is a language with
its own intrinsic vocabulary and grammar unlike written or
spoken language. It takes a long time to learn. Part of that
process consists of “unlearning” preconceptions that we all
bring to the table when we start. “I want to draw what I
see,” is often the mantra of beginners. It doesn’t take long
before they realize that seeing in terms of art is a very different
process.
I remember studying drawing with Robert Beverley Hale,
who taught us how to see the body in terms of mass conceptions:
a square for the base of the hand, cylinders for
the fingers, etc. I was having a hard time getting it. So I
was going to show Mr. Hale how it should really be done.
By keen observation I followed the contour of every part of
the model by basically drawing a map of the body and feeling
incredibly confident that all that mass conception stuff
was just a waste of time. Then I looked at the drawing…
and went back to studying mass conceptions.
It takes years to get to a point when one can speak a new
Art Students League instructor Costa Vavagiakis with a student
language fluently and art is no different. Simple phrases
have to be mastered before complex statements. This is
a lifelong pursuit, but the further one pursues the language
creation, the greater the rewards.
Go to a museum. As an art educator, I believe it should
be a top priority of any school of fine art to teach cognitive
skills—recognition, analysis, understanding, and eventually
execution. The best way of doing that is by studying the
work of the masters.
Emerging artists need to see the works by (I’ll limit myself
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