failure

The summer shows are over. At one point this summer I had about 40 paintings in five different galleries, from a brand new quasi commercial/quasi co-op gallery to an established museum-type public space. I'd worked hard and expected to make a few sales, but at summer's end I have sold only a single painting. I've been rationalising the situation by telling myself that nobody has sold much this summer, and it's true, but to have so much exposure and so little success is still extremely deflating. Sometimes I can channel my angst by focusing on the financial aspect, surgery on the dog and replacing the furnace being thousands of dollars that we did not need to go into the hole for this summer. But on a deeper level it's a failure of identity.

So the huns are at the door. School is starting on Tuesday and I finally had to give up my teaching contract in June when my hopes were still high, so there is no longer a fall-back position on which to rely. Fortunately, Andy recommended a couple of books to me that have helped me think about this more objectively. The first was First Things First. What I got most from this book was the basic human necessity of leaving a legacy. For many people this means raising and launching the next generation, but it also means doing personally meaningful work if that is something you feel a pressing need to do. I have always known what I was "meant" to do, it just took many years of sorting through the crap that had built up around my mind to find it again. And now that I'm there it's not easy, but then that's one of the reasons I didn't do it in the first place. I had finally reached the point where this quote glaringly applied to me: People won’t pursue their callings until the fear of doing so is finally exceeded by the pain of not doing so. The major wrench in the works for me waiting until now is that I have two children whose needs precede my own.

I am now starting to read David Whyte's Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work As A Pilgrimage of Identity. I'm barely into it, but this paragraph resonated with me at this time:

The stakes in good work are necessarily high. Our competence may be at stake in ordinary, unthinking work, but in good work that is a heartfelt expression of ourselves, we necessarily put our very identities to hazard. Perhaps it is because we know, in the end, we are our gift to others and the world. Failure in truly creativre work is not some mechanical breakdown but the prospect of a failure in our very essence, a kind of living death. Little wonder we often choose the less vulnerable, more familiar approach, that places work mostly in terms of provision. If I can reduce my image of work to just a job I have to do, then I keep myself safely away from the losses to be endured in putting my heart's desire at stake.

So back to the drawing board. After all, who needs motivational self-help books when you've got Rudy's latest recommendation?