Rejection = Not so bad = Try again next time

Like most of us, there have been times Monkey + Seal have been rejected. Many of these times, it's not the end of the world. Even if you have been rejected, there's nothing wrong with rejection as long as you are using these setbacks as learning experiences to better your chances next time.

Monkey really wanted some Academy of Art University recognition, and the annual Spring Show is the best of the best of all student work. It is a juried show, with a jury that consists of both Academy faculty as well as outside professionals. Monkey, when he first started at Academy, decided he wanted to win Best of Show at one of the Spring Shows. He would have three chances to make it.

The first year, he submitted a portrait of Seal rendered in charcoal. Looking back, there were a lot of small technical mistakes, and those slight mistakes are the difference between Spring Show material and good student work.

The second year, he submitted a bunch of illustrations, paintings, and a screenprinted multimedia sculptural work to the Fine Art and Illustration departments. Out of a total of 10 pieces submitted, he again didn't make it.

The third and final chance, he submitted seven illustrations, a screenprinted book, and three paintings. One illustration made it, and his screenprinted book made it as well.

Monkey considers himself to be fortunate that he got anything in such a highly competitive show, but at the same time, he failed at winning the highly coveted and prestigious Best of Show Award. And this was it. After graduating, there would be no more chances of making it into the show, as only students are allowed to compete.

Monkey could have gotten depressed about the fact the failure, but instead he realized that his style of painting would never win any awards in a school that promotes classical realism. After some retrospection, Monkey really wanted recognition from an authority figure - and AAU happened to be the most authoritative figure at the time. So, Monkey has revised his goal - he'd now much rather focus on being featured in Juxtapoz, which is much more of his style, rather than trying to get a school that promotes a non-Monkey style to fall in with him.

Seal was recently reading a blog entry about Aaron Hartline, Woody and Buzz (Toy Story) animator for Pixar.

"The day I saw Toy Story was the day I knew I wanted to work for Pixar. Well, it ended up taking me 14 years to get my dream job. For a long time, I had a board so full of rejection letters next to my desk that they were literally falling on the ground because the pins couldn't hold that many papers layered over each other. But after a mile long of rejection letters, many demo reels, interviews that didn't pan out, and countless hours in front of a computer working on the next thing that might get me into Pixar, I'm actually animating a Buzz and Woody." - Aaron Hartline, Animation Tips & Tricks.

Keep in mind that no matter how bad you think it is, there's always a second chance, and many more after that, whether you can see it or not. As an artist, you have to constantly try and try again - rejection and failure are unfortunately a part of the livelihood of an visual artist. The thing is, you can't take it personally and you can use these as learning experiences as ways to step up your game.

Making Space and Congrats to Monkey

First off, we'd like to announce that Monkey also received word yesterday that he got a piece into the School of Illustration's Spring Show! Yay! Seal also got a piece in for Illustration as well! Double-yay!

Second, the Monkey + Seal studio has been quite cluttered and busy these past few days as we've been cleaning up and going through old work and organizing our studio. We bought yet another rack for our art supplies (we already had two 72" x 36" x 20" racks, now we have three), and a nightstand for our printers.

Some of you might be all tidy tidy, but we're both (especially Monkey) pack-rat-ish, and we're always stocking up on different mediums, surfaces, and paper, so with all of the stuff we have going on, a perfectly tidy apartment is not the highest priority.

Although it's a time consuming process for us to move everything around and clean up (especially when we both could be doing more things to directly bring in money), it is a necessity for us. As artists, we have to constantly make space for new creations, new art, and new phases in life.

Purging old things that you no longer need doesn't just clear up physical space but also a psychological space. Old clothes can be donated (or repurposed), and we find that when we get rid of old stuff that "doesn't feel like us anymore," it allows us to think about stuff that does "feel like us" now. Although we're still not there yet, the moves and new fixtures have already made the space much more spacious, and we can already feel the difference in the energy level of the apartment. It is a much more conducive space to creating, and we hope to keep it that way for the year to come.

Are there any tips you'd like to share on making space? We're more interested in the metaphorical than literal, but if you've got some great cleaning tips we'd love to hear those as well!

Congrats to Seal and a Question for You

Today we got some good news - The visual development project she worked on all last semester has been accepted to the Academy of Art's Spring Show! Yay for Seal! The best that can come of this is that Seal gets a job offer from an animation studio, the worst is that she now has another award to put on her resume!

In other news, for all you readers out there, Monkey wants to know what your dream guide would be. Would is be about how to make a living as an artist? Would it be how to do prepress for commercial printing? Would it have something to do with the wedding industry? A design for dummies? A guide to essential tools for self-promotion? A beginner's guide to painting?

We want to hear about what YOU want. Ideally. Even if we've never talked about it before, what would your ideal guide consist of?