My First Firing

I've had some unpleasant jobs. I'm hard put to decide which was the worst. I did data entry in the collections department of a hospital. I delivered pizza with an unreliable car. I held an 'instructor' position just out of grad school where my co-instructor was my difficult and depressed boss. But the job that has left the worst taste in my mouth was the one that had the nerve to fire me. Dammit! I should have quit first.

This job was quite bizarre, if something so mind-numbing can qualify as bizarre. It was in what was basically a graphic design sweat shop. I was a 'designer,' one of about fifteen. The shop specialized in promotional materials for real estate agents. This was all we did, the uglier the better. In fact, having any visual sensibility was something of a handicap because it slowed you down. (20/20 hindsight mistake number 1)

Real estate agents have a mania for putting their own pictures on everything. I scanned Glamor Shots of women in sequined cowboy hats and purple satin, of jowly middle-aged men in too-tight navy blue suits, of greasy guys who looked like they just walked off the set of Glengarry Glen Ross. Pictures of houses were secondary to those unlovely, questionably trustworthy faces.

This took place about 11 years ago, before the original internet bubble burst. Rumors of the good life to be had working for one of the new .coms were everywhere (office masseuses, nap rooms, free food delivery, indoor frisbee, huge salaries). The owners of the graphic design hell where I worked imagined themselves to be some sort of minor Netscape. Unfortunately they did little to back up this fantasy beyond allowing dogs in the office (they were dog owners), occasionally bringing in free bagels, and, when the weather was nice, opening the giant garage doors to let in a little light. Did I mention that this sweatshop was in an old metal warehouse? No windows, only big, weird, usually-locked doors. Oil stains from trucks and tractors decorated my cubicle floor.

extreme fun within

I had been hired during an increase in sales by a sort of hippie dude whom I'll call Clive. Clive was skinny and bearded, with a ponytail and lots of leather biker gear. He liked to dangle dream catchers from his clothing. He had a story he liked to tell about guys doing lines off the hood of an old Chevy.

Clive told me when I was hired that it didn't really matter when I got to work, as long as I put in eight hours before I left again. I believed him. Since my commute was a full hour on the highway, I frequently got in past 8:30 am due to traffic, and I dutifully stayed past 5:30 to make up the time. When Clive mysteriously disappeared I didn't revise my arrival time, or ask anyone about it. (20/20 hindsight mistake number 2)

About two weeks after Clive disappeared there was suddenly hoopla about how, since the company was growing so quickly, they had decided to hire someone away from Canon to be the manager of operations (previously Clive's job). I thought this was odd, since work had obviously fallen off in the past months, and we were sitting around waiting for more orders for ugly stuff.

Mr. Fancy Canon arrived on a Friday, gave us an unmemorable speech across the bagel table and then left us to our cavern of cubicles. The following Monday I arrived, at 8:45, to an entirely empty cubicle. I was informed that I was wanted in Mr. Fancy Canon's office. When I got there, he handed me my stuff in a box and told me I was to leave the building immediately. Why? Because I didn't get to work on time. But what about what Clive had said? He didn't know about any Clive and I had already been spoken to once me about my lateness. No, in fact I hadn't. Shut up and get out of my office. Oooooookaaay.

Later, home quite early for a Monday, I opened my final pay check which had been sitting on my table since the previous Friday. In it was a little passive aggressive hand written note from the owner's partner about how I was wasting the company's time and resources by arriving fifteen minutes late everyday and I was to stop this practice immediately.

Right. Mr. UnNetscape, I still have a few things I want to say to you. First, bagels in a butler barn don't qualify as fun. Second, you should be ashamed to make your living by filling other people's mailboxes with ugly dreck. Third, it is utterly ridiculous that you were afraid to talk to me in person at any point before asking me to leave your pathetic establishment. If you run the rest of your life like that, it must suck. I hope it does.

The Surrealist Housewives of New Jersey

submitted by Marc Raymond

"You should really submit something," said my friend Kristen. It was the autumn of 2002 and I had really wanted to get back into the art scene (I'm a professional designer and I rarely get to create anything with myself as the audience). Kristen— a great photographer and a New Jersey native — was going to submit several photographs to the annual Monmouth County Arts Council art exhibition. Here was my chance as she would be a good influence on me to get back into visual arts — but what should I do?

For several months, I had been documenting and collecting artifacts from several trips to New England (I'm a native Rhode Islander) and it all seemed to come together. I had produced a piece entitled "Ocean Forty" — an installation that combined both ready-made art and original silkscreen prints. It was my homage to the Post Road/Route 1 thoroughfare that runs through the Northeastern United States. It was a celebration of the American idea of the vacation, which featured motel art, suburban architecture, and seafood restaurant decor. I was very proud of it. "Ocean Forty" was also received well by family, friends, and colleagues, but would it play in New Jersey?

It was a cold autumn night as Kristen, my wife, a friend and I drove from Manhattan to Monmouth County, New Jersey. The location of the Monmouth County Arts Council was located in an unassuming building next to a small Italian restaurant. I was surprised. For a regionally significant art exhibition, everything seemed so...crafty. The Monmouth County Arts Council show was essentially an upscale yard sale - nothing but quilts, vases, baroque-framed paintings, and Pottery Barn-eqsue photography. These were things that could be sold and re-sold. Here was art made by suburban housewives for other suburban housewives.

An obviously stressed-out and nervous "curator" was on the cusp of a full-blown panic attack when she saw "Ocean Forty."

"What is THIS!?"

"It's a conceptual installation piece," I said.

"Well," she stammered. "You need to draw a map or something right now as to how this thing gets assembled."


A somewhat uncomplicated installation, I quickly and throughly drew a map as to how the piece was to be assembled. I then handed "Ocean Forty" to the registration desk, paid the showing fee, and set it free into the court of public opinion. I felt both anxious and proud as we ate our celebratory pizza in the restaurant next door. I was back in the game. It wasn't a monumental or important art show, but it was a start.

Two weeks later, Kristen had returned from a return trip to New Jersey where she retrieved both our artwork and reviews from the jury. I couldn't wait to find out what they thought about my piece.

"So, Kristen. What did they think of 'Ocean Forty?'"

She handed me the original bag that I brought the piece in two weeks earlier.

"They never put it together," she said with gentle disappointment. "I found it near the trash."

What's the moral of the story? If you wish to subject your artwork to the scrutiny of the Monmouth County Arts Council, the first thing you need to develop is your price tag.

Arrhe est à art que merdre est à merde

by Sarah Hempel Irani

Returning to Maryland from attending the National Sculpture Society's Young Sculptors Competition at the Lyme Academy in Connecticut, another sculptor and I stopped in New York City. It was my first visit to New York. We attended an artists' salon hosted by a well-known sculptor. She hosts salons every Sunday afternoon at her flat. The idea is to bring slides or actual work to show to the group and hold a discussion. Things can get ugly.

When we arrived a small group was discussing self portraits. One consisted of bottles lined up on the street filled with the artist's, if I may call him that, own urine. We listened to an Italian Drew Carey look-alike express how moved he was. Then a young fellow showed photos of his murals painted illegally on buildings in Mexico City. Louise seemed more concerned with his unbuttoned shirt sleeves than his artwork. "Why don't you get your wife to fix your sleeves?" A French girl painted portraits of people on the Paris subway. She did not speak English and apparently everyone there, but me, spoke French. A Frenchman recited poetry in an enchanting, rhythmic voice.

Meanwhile, since this was an impromptu visit, neither of us had brought images of our work. So I sculpted a bas-relief portrait of our hostess, and the artist who had accompanied me created a small wax bust.

All of this was being captured on film by a German videotographer developing a documentary film on the life of Our Famous Host.

Near the end of the session, Famous Host pointed at me, "What are you doing over there?" She bid me set the small bas-relief and the wax bust on her desk. Then she proceeded to chop them both up with a butter knife, mixing clay and wax! She insisted that I finish destroying the work with my own hands.

The videotographer taped with enthusiasm. My humiliation was immortalized.

I politely thanked Our Famous Host and the others for having us and excused myself. As we left, she whispered, "Your work? It is shit!"

So much for the New York crowd.

Rejection of the Week: Typed Out

by George Reddick

Back in my actor days, I got pretty used to rejection. But one audition I attended was particularly rejection-tastic.

It was a cattle call. Hundreds of people show up for these open auditions so you have to get there really early if you want to get out in time to work the dinner shift at your restaurant that night.

On these days, I usually was going on about three hours sleep after working late the night before and schlepping home to my tiny one-bedroom apartment I shared with a roommate out in Brooklyn and then schlepping back to get to the audition site by 6AM. The doors didn’t open till 9, so those of us who got there early had to form a line and rely on each other to honor the line order as we were taken inside.

When I arrived, I was twelfth in line. Three hours later, they finally opened the doors. By then the line was snaking out behind me all the way down and around the block.

This particular audition was being held at Chelsea Studios in Manhattan. To get up to the floor where the audition is being held, a moderator sends people from the line upstairs in two rickety old elevators.

The first six people in line were put in the first elevator and the next six people, including me, were stuffed into the second elevator with some other people who worked in the building.

And then my elevator got stuck. We stood there, body to body for a solid half-an-hour while one woman cried and we punched the alarm button.

Finally, they got us upstairs. While we had been on the broken elevator, well over two hundred people had been brought up in the working elevator. I was now 275th in line. The six of us who had been stuck pleaded with the moderators to be let in early and they told us they’d do what they could.

Six hours later, I was finally brought into a room with fifty other hopefuls. The men behind the desk were in the process of “typing out.” This means you line up in groups of ten and each line steps forward toward the desk of judges. The judges look for about thirty seconds and then choose if they want to keep anyone from the line. The line then disperses and the next line steps up.

I was typed out. This means I did not sing or read. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. And I was late to my dinner shift and caught hell at the restaurant.

Yeah, that profession was awesome.

rejection novena

by hossannah asuncion

Those who can't, curate.

I'm in Chicago. It's 2001. I hear about a gallery that's showing 'emerging' photographers. Ok, I'm emerging, like a snail from its shell, or a worm from the ground, or some other lowly creature. This sounds perfect. I make an appointment.

The gallery looks official. It has white walls, framed photos, giant flat drawers, hardwood floors, all the requisites. Upon closer inspection, I note that the framed photographs seem to have been taken by the owner of the gallery. They are blurry fashion shots. Even in my callow youth this gives me pause. But I remind myself that I can't afford to be a snob. And if her own work is on the wall, she's probably some rich kid right out of Columbia or SAIC. Maybe we can form a bond.

Then she comes out to meet me. It's Cruella Deville with an eighties hairdo. Huh.

We sit and she looks at a few of my pictures.

"Well," she sighs deeply, "I don't know how I could sell these."

Ok.

"They're so depressing. Who wants to look at depressing stuff? And they have this theme," she flutters her hands, "All this stuff from the 1950's. Who wants to look at her mother's house?"

Not my mother's house. I didn't grow up in the 1950's.

I move to close my box of prints, but she has picked it up and has her nose about an inch away from one of my pictures. She reaches out and pushes some invisible specs of dust around with the tip of her finger. "You're going to have to learn how to print," she says, looking at me pityingly.

EXCUSE ME?

I wish I could say that I shot back something like, "And you're going to have to learn how to shoot if you ever want to show anywhere besides your own gallery," but my inner bitch was asleep at the wheel.

Rejection is like eating your vegetables. Your angry, dismissive, psychotic vegetables.

Your piece stinks. We fed it to the turtle. --David Holahan

I get rejected a lot, but not nearly as often as I should. If I really wanted to make it big, I'd be going around getting rejected at least once a week. Instead, I've been on the rejection wagon this year. I've been hiding in my apartment, not sending anything out, and not, God forbid, making appointments and walking places with my portfolio. My portfolio is dusty.

So this blog is going to knock me off the wagon, or get me back on the horse, or do some other antiquated, travel-related metaphor to me. Everything is either a good time or a good story, right?

The sad thing is, I haven't entirely avoided rejection this year. There have been little farts of it from some very small potatoes places. I hate small potatoes.

For example, an online business that accepts t-shirt design submissions rejected my submission of a high-contrast face as 'needing more work.' This from an organization that is actively marketing a t-shirt that features a rainbow-colored Native-American head in full feather headdress on a teal background. In the parlance of our times, WTF?

Turns out it's better to be rejected by the big boys.

So, in this blog I'll to catalog my encounters with the gallery and publishing worlds instead. No more t-shirt companies. Only Ahhht. As my friend in Chicago says, 'you gotta go balls out!' (She was talking about applying for apartments, but what the heck)

Soon you'll be reading about galleries like Waspylastname&Waspylastname. (On the extremely slim chance that anyone in Chelsea actually reads this thing all names will be changed) Each week there will also be an open call for 'rejection of the week.' Send me your stories and I'll post them here.