Malady of Art: Fear

By Jack White

Malady of Art: FEAR is one of Jack White's most powerful art marketing books. He grabs fear by the neck, giving it a good choking. More artists are held back by fear than any other obstacle. Claim victory over your apprehension. Read Malady of Art: FEAR and you will have a good grasp on how to deal with trepidation in your life, opening the door to success in your art career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257243617

Book preview

The Malady of Art: FEAR

By Jack White

Copyright 2007, 2010 By Senkarik Publishing

All rights reserved by Senkarik Publishing. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems.

ISBN: 978-0-557-33545-9

eISBN: 978-1-25724-361-7

Malady of Art: FEAR

Introduction

The number of artists I've corresponded with is incalculable. It would be nigh impossible to estimate how many have contacted us for advice and guidance over the past decade. Like a red ribbon coursing through Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair, the damning emotion of FEAR courses through their words once we get into a meaningful conversation. In almost every case the one thing holding artists back is not the lack of talent or desire, but raw FEAR. This frightening plague is a malady of enormous proportions and like the gates on a canal lock blocking the flow toward success. FEAR freezes all progress. Education doesn't cure this problem. I know artist with PhD's who are helpless to move because they are scared they will make a mistake. Years of experience in the field of art didn't eradicate this woe. Peer praise and adulation is not the cure for the difficulty clinging to the brain. FEAR must be faced and exposed or this emotional upheaval will spew forth into your daily life.

I, also, plan to destroy the myth that you are afraid because of what you were taught as a child. Perhaps some can find some validity in things you learned as a small child, but those are only an excuse they are not a reason. The Apostle Paul said, When I was a child I thought as a child but when I became an adult I put away childish things. He put aside a child like trait called fear and embraced adulthood reality.

In my era, children were controlled by fear. When I was a towheaded kid living on a cattle ranch in west Texas, my warnings came in the form stark fear. I was told what bad things would happen if I left the yard. Fear was used like an electric fence or perhaps a collar and chain. There was a mythical perimeter that I was not allowed to pass or all these dangers would happen. My discipline wasn't based on love or rational reasoning. My grandmother warned me almost daily to stay near the house, because a panther might eat me. The vision she painted was equal to any saber tooth tiger ever created on Frank Frazetta's easel. To reinforce her warning from time to time we could hear a panther (mountain lion) crying with a blood curdling scream down along the rivers edge. She never missed an opportunity to let me know the big cat was looking for food and his favorite dish was baby boys. They especially liked to eat blonde haired boys.

My grandparents didn't stop at my being eaten alive they also tossed on deadly snakes to keep me petrified. Almost as often as telling me to brush my teeth, she tossed out five snake dangers i.e. the cottonmouth, copperhead, spreading adders, diamond back rattlers and the mighty boa constructors. When describing the boa she would always mention that one swallowed a grown hog. It didn't matter that the hog and snake were in Africa her purpose for the frightening story was to control me by fear. In case the snakes were not enough for me to worry about they tossed in rabid foxes, wolves, coyotes, skunks, wild dogs, cats and bears. I can close my eyes and see the image of a mad dog with foam coming from his mouth. Yikes!!! Makes me not want to walk out to our mailbox. With these dreadful illusions in my head granddad would make me trudge through the pitch-black night to let our saddle horses out to graze. This meant I had to walk two hundred yards in total darkness not knowing if the snakes would swallow me, panther drag me to her babies, or if I'd be attacked by a rabid 'mad dog'. I think the term mad dog carried more weight to a small child than rabies. I knew what it meant to be bitten by a poisonous snake. My favorite dog was bitten by a snake, his neck became swollen, his eyes closed before he succumbed to the venom.

One of our workers was an old time cowboy and he was unexcelled in telling ghost stories that would clabber your blood and make your knees knock like a woodpecker on a fence post. I don't know his real name. We just called him Slat. You know like a bed slat. I would bet my boots, my best boots I lost you on the bed slat thing. Before most of you were born bedsprings were placed on wooden slats, which were rested on iron railing. The mattress was placed on top of the bedsprings.

To dramatize his stories Slat would tell us to look in the direction of our barn with a tin roof. When our eyes got fixed on the barn he would flip a small stone and let it trickle down, click, clank, clunk and thud as the pebble hit the ground. In a deep growl Slat drug out, He's tiptoeing down to the ground to find some food. Did you hear his pointed hooves on the roof? I've seen him and he is the devil. Blooood runs from his eyes and his faaangs flash in the moonlight. His favorite meal is littttle boys. He eats them raaaw! Slat could make the hair stand straight up on a buffalo robe.

My fear training didn't stop with my grandparents and Slat; before I went to school my uncles told me horror stories of how the schoolteacher beat kids for no reason. Like they were authorities on school. Two of my uncles never set foot in a schoolhouse and the other three dropped out before they finished the forth grade. I was raised by my grandparents, three of my uncles were still living at home and the forth was around all the time. Those four had me petrified of going to school. My grandmother walked me to the bus stop and left me first day of school. That was the only time anyone escorted me, from then on I was on my own. During the winter months, the sun wouldn't rise until I was on the bus and we were half way to school. If Slats blood curding creature didn't get me then the school principal would no doubt beat me to death. I was doomed one way or another. I lived in stark terror my first year of school. I dreaded going to school. It's impossible to describe the horror and panic I felt walking in the dark waiting for a ride to doom. Once at the bus stop the slightest sound caused my heart to skip more beats than a drummer with hiccups. In first grade, I refused to go out and play at recess. I dared not because if I made one mistake the principal would beat me to death. I knew this to be true because my uncles had clearly described the brutality.

My childhood was lived in an incubator of fear. I have related my foundation of fear to let you see you are not living in isolation. Everyone is taught fear. Small children are not scared. Fear is a learned emotion. You are not alone in being taught fear at an early age.

Leave it to the Brits to teach us how make a man fear marriage. They have a men's club, called Bachelors' Anonymous. The club provided a unique way to treat the problem of bachelors wanting to marry. They send over a mother-in-law in nightgown, hair curlers, and a mudpack. I wish I had something similar to help you deal with your fears.

Chapter One

Rejection

Fear is best defined as false evidence appearing real. Now that I'm an adult I can clearly see how Slat flipped a pebble onto the barn roof and let our imaginations conjure up a demon of the rankest order running down the tin. I swear I could see his pronged hoofs bring sparks as they made contact with the metal. Slat gave us false evidence and our young minds made his stories appear real. I could have passed a lie detector test with ease if asked if I saw the flaming eyed creature on the barn roof. The demon was real as rain at the time.

Fear is like that. Fear makes the imagined appear real. Write this down and anytime you are experiencing fear remind yourself.

FEAR

False

Evidence

Appearing

Real

Fear need not be fatal. In fact fear only can do the damage we allow. Like salt, a pinch of fear is good; however, a handful will poison you. The body needs sodium to hold water in the blood vessels. Sodium also regulates water balance in all parts of the body. If too much water is held in the body, the amount of blood increases. If it increases too much, serious problems will arise. The same is true of fear. We need a small amount to motivate us but any extra and the damage begins.

Eating too much salt can cause high blood pressure. High blood pressure can cause heart disease and other health problems. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest reducing salt/sodium in our daily diet. Sodium is the part of salt that increases blood pressure. Table salt is made up of sodium and chloride. Salt and other sodium containing ingredients are often found in processed or packaged foods. Most of the sodium in our meals comes from processed foods. We eat salt because it makes food taste better. It enhances the flavor of almost everything we eat. Yet eating too much salt is dangerous. The increase in blood makes the heart work harder and can result high blood pressure. When high blood pressure is not controlled, it can lead to a heart attack, stroke, or kidney disease.

Fear in small doses makes us work harder, spend less, and stay on edge. I have a built in fear of poverty. I work as hard today as I did when I was twenty because I never want to be broke and homeless again. I know how fleeting fame and fortune are. This is not false evidence but reality.

In understanding fear we must discern what is real and what is stuff we imagine. I have been working with a young couple to salvage their marriage. She is struggling with being raped at fourteen and an abortion forced on her by her parents. Knowing the situation of her rape, I can see why her mother didn't want her to birth the child. Her rapist was her mother's brother. Memories of the despicable act began to surface after she birthed two lovely girls. She told her husband she needed space. She became frightened for him to touch her and asked him to move out. Mikki and I have encouraged the husband to ignore her request and return home. He said, What if?

What if what? No matter how many logical reasons we give for him to move back in, be a father to his daughters and to be there for his hurting wife he has a what if comeback. What if it is nothing but fear? His fear is rejection. If he tried to go back she MIGHT reject him. Lolly, dolly, dolly, it's not like she is going to butcher his body and bar-b-que his ribs. She is hurting every much as he is. They are both paralyzed with what if.

The one single most powerful reason artist fail is their fear of rejection. No matter how great we all we will get rejected. It's impossible to be an artist and not be rejected. When I started writing, I knew I would face rejection. I remember reading the story of would-be crime novelist John Creasey. John set a record of successive rejection slips. He received 743 rejection slips in a row before he was ever published. Once his first book was published he wasted no time exploding on the market. In forty years he had 562 full-length books published under 28 different pseudonyms. Over sixty million of his books have now been sold. He wrote the famous Gideon series. John Fords Gideon's Day in 1955 came from John Creasey's novel by the same name. Creasey also wrote plays, short stories, and juvenile books. He wrote romantic novel under the name of a woman. Much of the author's work is now out of print, but his influence has been acknowledged by several of the leading English mystery writers. What if John had given up at rejection slip number 740?

As a teenager, shyness caused her not to be very popular, which she translated into rejection that she was ugly. She was rejected by her peers and was stunned when a talent scout discovered her in a Dusseldorf nightclub. Just weeks later she appeared in Elle and a short time later Claudia began modeling for Chanel. At five foot eleven, one hundred twenty eight pounds her face has graced the covers of more magazines than any other supermodel in the world. She became a top fashion model, hailed by many as the most beautiful woman in the world. All those who had ignored her are now boasting that they had gone to school with Claudia Schiffer! What if she had not been in the club that night? What if she gave up because she was rejected?

Rejected as too awkward and clumsy to be a ball boy in a Davis Cup tennis match, Stan Smith went on to become the officially ranked number one tennis player in the world. What if Stan had given up tennis because they wouldn't let him be a ball boy?

At his first audition, the great Fred Astaire was scoffed at for being skinny and balding. He said the rejection stung but not enough for him to give up dancing.

Ludwig van Beethoven's music teacher declared him 'hopeless' at composing. Today we know him primarily as a composer but he was a celebrated pianist and accomplished violinist first. He was born in Bonn Germany but moved to Vienna, Austria in his early twenties to study with Joseph Hayden. Hayden rejected his early compositions as he wanted his student to build a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. In his late twenties he began to lose his hearing gradually, and yet he continued to produce notable masterpieces throughout his life, even when his deafness was almost total he was doing his best work. Beethoven was one of the first composers who worked as a freelance artist, arranging subscription concerts, selling his compositions to publishers and gaining financial support from a number of wealthy patrons, rather than being permanently employed by the church or by an aristocratic court. What if Hayden's rejection of his composing had stopped Beethoven? Would the world have ever heard of this genius?

Think about this, Albert Einstein's parents feared he was sub-normal. He was a slow learner.

Max Raffler was born on October 8, 1902 in the village of Greifenberg, Bavaria, a region of southern Germany. His parents were farmers, but his father also served as mayor of the village from 1911 to 1930. Max was considered mentally ill, but that didn't prevent him from loving to paint. When his parents died his older sisters took over the farm. The sisters wouldn't allow him to pursue formal art training. Over the years, as his paintings piled ever higher, his sisters would burn them to make room for more. His subjects were often images of the rural countryside, and religious pictures that were encouraged by a local priest and shown in the church. Other images include self-portraits and paintings of cats, as well as illustrations of children's stories. Finally, when an old man, his artistic ability was recognized. His sisters destroyed paintings that would have sold for millions of dollars. He died in 1988. Today his work is still shown widely in published books and he remains one of Germany's most well known naïve painters. What if he had stopped when his sisters started burning his work? What if their rejection of his art had caused him to give up? What if he became so depressed when they burned his paintings he had to be institutionalized?

It was the dead of night as a shadow slunk down a back street. He slipped away from his friends to mail his manuscript—hiding his secret, petrified they might find out and ridicule him. The manuscript was rejected. More rejections pierced him before he found a monthly installment for his writings. His episodic writings would later be published into books. He won the hearts of millions with his great classics. But first he had to stare down rejection. At the age of 12 he was deemed old enough to work ten hours a day in a Warren's boot-blacking factory located near Charing Cross railway station. His job was pasting labels on the jars of thick shoe polish. With this money, he had to pay for his help to support his family since his father was incarcerated in debtor's prison

Their financial situation improved, partly due to money inherited from his father's family. His mother did not immediately remove him from the boot-blacking factory. He never forgave his mother for this, and resentment of his situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works. A mature Charles Dickens wrote in David Copperfield, I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind.

Dickens's episodic writing style was his exposure to the opinions of his readers in Oliver Twist. The monthly novel first appeared in short stories where he could witness the public reaction. He changed the story to please his audience. His fear of rejection was evident in his willingness to comply with the whims of his readers. What if he had accepted his mother's assessment of him?

Did you know when the Wright brother sent out invitations to see them fly their heavier-than-air machine at Kitty Hawk NC only five people showed up? One of the most important events in humanity and certainly in the history of transportation couldn't gain enough respect to garner any attention. The news media rejected them as kooks. What if they had looked at the crowd, realizing two were local farmers who ambled over to see what the fuss was about, folded their wings and gone home? We might not be flying around the world instead we would be dependent on ships.

Do you know about Michael Dell? He is the son of a Houston orthodontist and attended Memorial High School. His government teacher told him, You will never go anywhere in life. After the government teacher retired in 2002 Dell outfitted the entire school with computers. The retired teacher didn't attend. At age 15, he broke down a brand new Apple II and rebuilt it, just to see if he could. While attending the University of Texas Kozmetzky Business School he started making computers in his room at Dobie Center so he would have some spending money. His Jewish parents could have easily afforded to give him plenty of spending money they wanted him to realize the importance of a dollar earned. He called his dorm room company Pc's Limited. Dr. George Kozmetzky gave the class a project to invent a company and build a business model. This paper counted for one third of his grade. It occurred to him that his paper could also be his personal business plan for marketing computers.

Michael chose his own little company, Pc's Limited to write a plan. Kozmetzky ridiculed 19-year-old Michael Dell and wouldn't accept the paper. Along with the humiliating rebuke Dr. Kozmetzky, instructed Michael not to return to class until he came up with something more realistic. Young Dell dropped out of college to run his new company Dell Computers. His grandparents invested in his idea and the rest is history. He is a success today because he didn't let his high school government teacher's rejection kill his ambition. He didn't let the learned professor, demeaning his marketing plan, to become a roadblock. There are times we have to prove people in power wrong.

Many times others cannot see our determination or our vision. I recently heard from an oil painter. He lamented, I went to nine galleries today, and they all rejected me. They were nice and said they liked my work but that I was not right for their gallery. I picked up the telephone and gave him a call.

He was as a low and sad as a hound dog that got caught chasing rabbits. Jack, I don't know what to do. They seemed to like my work but they each said my work didn't fit their gallery requirements.

What kind of art do they show? I answered still puzzled why so many turned down his work. I knew he was doing some strong stuff.

Mostly abstract or very modern, cutting edge pieces. He answered with a whisper as if he was ashamed to speak.

I resorted to some Texas, rapier wit and got both of us laughing. I knew we could make no progress with him smothering in the fear of rejection. When I stopped coughing from laughter I asked another question, What kind of art do you make? I already knew but I wanted him to respond.

Contemporary traditional. His answer was quick and to the point.

Did you see any work similar to yours in any of the nine galleries that rejected your art?

Now that you mention it, I can't think of any. In fact I know there was nothing even similar to my voice.

Charlie,' I said, They didn't reject you, they didn't reject your art. You were a round plug trying to fit in a square hole. Go find a gallery that sells contemporary traditional art in the same genre and style you work in. If you are going to get turned down, make sure you are dealing with a gallery that can say yes. An abstract gallery can't say yes even if they love your work. You don't fit their walls. "

I wanted him to know the rejection was because his style, subject, and genre were different from the galleries he was seeking representation in. We have a saying in Texas, Birds of a feather flock together. You don't see sparrows roosting with pigeons. You don't see a flock of humming birds flying south with a gaggle of geese. A covey of quail doesn't nest with a murder of crows. It's not rejection unless you are in a gallery carrying work similar to yours. Put geese with geese, eagles with eagles, and ducks with ducks. Find your kind and eliminate rejections.

Country and western mega star George Strait was told by music producer's old honky-tonk country music was past its time. People no longer listen to that out of dated music. That was not what he wanted to hear. He cut his teeth on the pure country of Hank Williams, George Jones and Bob Wills. Young George was majoring in ranch management at Southwest Texas State in San Marcos and playing in local gigs on the weekends to pay for his college. The well dried up, he disbanded his band and was in the process of selling his equipment when he got a call from a label that had previously rejected him because he was too country. At first he told them he was not interested. One of him band members insisted they give it one last effort. He got his band together, the label loved his songs and his first album Go Gold did just that.

Clint Black played for nine years in and around Houston barely able to make his guitar payments. He struggled to keep from getting his instrument repossessed. He didn't even have the money for a demo record. He was rejected weekly from playing in the bigger clubs. 26 different Nashville labels turned down Toby Keith. No one wanted to hear songs he had written. If you toss in the towel when you hear no then you don't belong in this business.

H. B. Warner of Warner Brothers fame scoffed at the notion of 'talkies.' No one would want to hear movie actors talk. Television, too, was once written off. It would never appeal to the average American family the New York Times pronounced. What if the public had listened to the Times or Warner Brothers?

Parker Brothers (Hasbro) rejected the most popular toy ever invented. Their assessment of Monopoly came up with 52 insoluble faults. Their experts said there were just too many negatives for the product to ever be of any value. Charles Darrow, the inventor, made it in a shed behind his home and took his samples to the Toy Fair. When the game began to sell, the public was gobbling it up. Hasbro changed their minds. Last count 800 million people have played Monopoly since Darrow first fought back rejection and put his game on the market. This is the most popular board game ever invented and if its inventor had listened to the experts, we would not be discussing Monopoly today.

John Grisham is a household name but that was not always the case as he was born in Jonesboro Arkansas to cotton farmer parents who moved to Southaven Mississippi. He attended Mississippi State University and received his BS in accounting. He switched his law degree to criminal and general litigation. He became very active in politics and was elected as the Democrat House Representative from his district. In 1984, while observing a harrowing testimony of a twelve-year old rape victim, he was very moved. He pondered what would happen if the father killed the perpetrators. The next three years he wrote his first novel A Time to Kill. Rejection slips began to pile up. Finally he hired a vanity press to print his novel. On weekends he went from bookstore to bookstore selling a few copies. He was able to sell about a hundred copies while at the same time mailing his vanity published book to publishers. Wynwood Press decided to take a chance and printed 5,000 copies. His next book The Firm became the 7th best selling novel in 1991. Only Tom Clancy has sold more books in the same time frame. The Pelican Brief sold twelve million copies in the United States alone. What if John had continued as a bean counter? What if he gave up after several rejections of A Time to Kill?

I walked into my first art gallery when I was almost 37. Prior to my gallery visit I had shown no interest in being an artist. I didn't have a clue how to paint nor did I understand how one could earn a living painting. My construction business went under when a company I was building a large apartment complex filed for bankruptcy. I owned almost two miles of property across the highway from Lakeway on Lake Travis. Today that property would be worth millions. Two miles along the road facing one of the more upscale properties would be like winning the lottery. I sold off the land to pay debts and employee salaries. We moved to Austin, rented a small house with no job prospects, three small children, and a sickly wife. She was a registered nurse, but said she didn't feel like working.

After two hours in the Austin, Texas, Country Store Art Gallery I felt I could do some of the work I saw. I went home and announced to my wife, I'm going to be an artist!

She was overjoyed. Perhaps I should have said overwrought. She sobbed profusely and told me I had lost my mind. My oldest child was in kinder garden and the others were just little babies. I was scared. My fear was I couldn't earn enough to feed them, pay the rent and utilities. This was a few days before Christmas. I hocked my watch, bowling ball, and whatever thing of value I had to purchase presents for under the tree. I had already sold my Mercedes for money to move my family from Houston to Austin. My only car was an old Chevrolet station wagon with a burn spot in the middle of the hood. I purchased the wagon for my janitor but he didn't want to be seen in it because of the burned front end. I assume the carburetor caught on fire and scorched the paint. The motor was in excellent condition; however, the heater and air conditioning didn't work. I went to work on making art. I was able to talk a realtor in leasing me a space on credit until I was able to earn some money. By the first week in January I was in business. To my dismay no one stopped. In fact I didn't have a customer until February 14, 1970. A lady made the mistake of checking out my studio. I sold her a $20 original for $10. It was crystal clear I wouldn't be able to earn a living sitting on my rear waiting for folks to drift in.

I put my entire inventory of paintings in the back of the old brown station wagon and hit the road. Day one I was kicked out of store on top of store, galleries, gift shops and anyone who would let me show my art. Some were nice but others were downright rude. I spent the night in my car and shaved in a service station restroom. Day two was more of the same. One sympathetic art supply store did trade me some paints for a painting. After another day of rejection, I again found a spot to park my car and cuddled up in the front seat. Day three started out worse than the first two days. The only difference I knew unless I sold something I would have to give up and get a 9 to 5 job. My giving up had nothing to do with my facing rejection I had to earn money to feed my babies. My first two stops wouldn't let me bring my art in their store. About noon, the bottom fell out of the sky. I was in Fort Worth and decided head west hoping the rain would pass over to the east. It was about six in the afternoon when I drove in the outskirts of Mineral Wells. The rain stopped and the sun broke through. On my left, the sunrays fell on a new building. It was like you see in the Raider's of the Lost Arc where the heavens open and a floodlight hits the holy relic. The building housed a new furniture store. I pulled into the wet parking lot, flipped open the rear and grabbed a couple of my masterpieces. This was it. It this store didn't purchase I would have to give up and get job. I had less than a dollar in my pocket. I had not eaten all day.

Even though I was flat broke I was clean shaved, my boots polished and my shirt was clean. I kept the door open with my toe and swung my two paintings into the store. There was no one to greet me. I thought, Are they closed and forgot to lock the door?

Just then a portly gentleman came waddling up the aisle. I will never forget his voice. He had a distinct Texas whang, Whatcha got there young feller?

I raised both pieces and answered, My painting sir.

He stopped, stared and then hollowed, Myrtle, come up here mama. This is some of the prettiest darn stuff you will ever see.

I can close my eyes and see his check for $253.47 cents. As I was getting ready to leave he asked, You got any walking round money?

I have your check sir. I matter of factly replied.

Thought so. Go get me another small one. Here is a twenty so you can eat. I heard your stomach growling as you were showing me these pitchers. Yes he did say pitchers instead of pictures. I didn't correct his pronunciation. To me he was my patron.

I purchase a hamburger, gas and headed back to Austin. Week after week I was on the road selling my paintings. I sold over $43,000 by January 1971. To put this in perspective the average salary of an adult male was $6,500 and you could buy a new home for $30,000 and a gallon of gas was .30 cents.

My fear was not that of rejection. My fear was letting my children down. There was not a week I didn't face more rejections than acceptances. I averaged making eight calls for one sale my first six months. I kept studying what kinds of places were kicking me out on my ear. The better I understood what kind of places to call on the better my percentage of success improved. The following year I cut the rejections down considerably to an acceptable of two calls equaled one sale. Even when I had my prospects cold stone down I still missed selling half of those I called on. At the peak of my game, I was batting 50-50. Half of my attempts ended up in rejection.

You can dramatically reduce your rejection percentage by making better selections. If you are early in your development stages then don't solicit the top gallery in Santa Fe or New York City. If you just started doing shows, don't try to jury into Coral Gables or one of the biggest producing festivals. You need to get a few under your belt so you can better understand how to succeed. If you do abstract then expect to be rejected if you ask a traditional gallery to sell your work and vice versa. Much of your rejection can be avoided by using a little common sense.

Let me ask you a question. Could you swim when you first jumped in the water? How about riding a bike, skating or reading on the first attempt? If you play the piano tell me about your first performance? I bet you didn't rock the house down. You didn't give up after being rejected with your first attempt to kiss a girl. Rejection is as normal as breathing.

I realize the majority of you are not interested in sports. But you would have to be living in a cave with no media or electricity to not know about the National Football League or NFL. Most of you even have a favorite team even though you don't watch the games on TV or go to the stadium. The NFL has a league office that schedules the games, deals with grievances, insured minority hiring, sets policy on the use of drugs and suspended player for off field problems. Like this past year nine Cincinnati Bengal players were arrested. A commissioner rules the NFL league. Mikki and I had recently had dinner with Paul Tagliabue who just retired as commissioner. 47-year-old Roger Goodell replaced Paul to become the most powerful man in sports. As a 22-year-old college graduate, Roger began a letter writing campaign seeking employment with the NFL. His letters were never answered. He increased to a letter a day but this time he used bright colored envelopes. Finally, someone in a lower position agreed to an interview. Roger was giving a low-level entry job helping as an analyst.

What if Roger had given up after ten letters? After twenty letters? After forty letters? He got the interview on his sixty-seventh letter. Once he was on the NFL payroll he methodically worked his way up the ladder to become the commissioner. At 47, he could boast of twenty-four years experience. No competitor could come close. Every NFL football game is played with a ball branded Roger Goodell.

He was born Joseph Lane and has described his childhood as something from a bad Eugene O'Neill play. His father was a truck driver who was rendered unemployable by eye disease, and eventually drank himself to death. His mother was a manic-depressive whose mood swings grew progressively worse as her husband's health deteriorated, until she was hospitalized. He was raised in large part by his older brother, the de facto man of the house, who encouraged his interest in theater. When at twenty-one he told his mother he was a homosexual her immediate response was, I'd rather you were dead.

Lane vividly remembers the first laughs he got on stage in a school play. It hit him like a much-needed hug and he has spent his life honing his skill as a reliably funny comedic actor on stage and screen. On the strength of several high school plays, he earned a partial scholarship to study drama at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, but he was unable to come up with the rest of the required tuition. Instead he worked as a stand-up comic, auditioning and constantly being rejected for small stage roles while supporting himself with a succession of odd jobs. He was a bail bondsman, polltaker and delivered singing telegrams. After a few small parts in dinner theater and children's plays, he was finally hired for union work as an actor, but he needed a new name. When he attempted to sign up another actor was already billed as Joseph Lane. Borrowing from his favorite theatrical character, Nathan Detroit of the musical Guys and Dolls, he became Nathan Lane. He beat back the ultimate rejection by his mother and stacks of theatre turn downs to rise to the top.

I've demonstrated to you some of the more famous people in the world-faced multitudes of rejections along the way. The people who succeed are the ones who learn to ignore rejections and plod forward. Here is a hard cold fact: if you do anything worth-while; you will find rejection.

There is a reason for most rejections. One of the most common is the fault of artists. You stick a bundle of photos in a portfolio and mail them unsolicited to galleries and then are crushed when there is no reply or in rare cases when you get your package back in the mail. You traipse into a gallery on their most active day of the week and are devastated because you were treated rudely. Artists are the worst to set themselves up for rejection and then go into a blue funk with it happens.

The act of rejection can be passive in that a person may be unresponsive to act or request from the other person, but not actually take specific steps to indicate that the other person is rejected. Examples of such behavior may include where the targeted person is not returning a phone call, an e-mail message, which the caller or sender interprets as them being rejected. So much of rejection is perceived. You go into a gallery expecting to be rejected and whether or not the action or inaction is done purposely to reject you a red flag automatically shoots up because of your perception of negativity. You may have negative thoughts about the reasons for the action or inactions by the gallery, which is based on total fabrication on your part. For example, They refused to immediately return my call, because they don't like my work, or I don't matter, that is why they haven't responded. There may of course be reasons, which are unrelated to the way you are feeling. The gallery owner's might have died. The gallery is bankrupt. The gallery is not selling or they are covered up with artists sending them stuff. Perhaps they got twenty-five artist portfolios the week before your package arrived.

A sure fire way to get rejected: email galleries images. DO NOT email images unless the galleries request them. Mikki has a large website and mine is not all that small. We have some twenty different hyper-contact links on her site for people to email us. Spam interceders will go through her website and send up Spam to every link. Some mornings we have 400 Spams and before you email me. Yes, we do have Spam blocker software. I know if I despise Spam then they must be a double annoyance to galleries.

Some of you are rejected by shows because of your presentation. One artist I have been coaching (for free) wrote complaining she was rejected by three shows, which she had been juried in the year before. I suggested she look at her presentation package. Sure enough she was leaving out her spring and summer images. She paints plein air and was sending her latest work. The problem all of those paintings were of trees with no leaves and in the snow. Since her shows were during the summer we could see why the rejection. She changed her presentation and bang, she was accepted to the number 2 show in the North America. One small change in her presentation and she suffered no more rejections.

Note I said suffer. The feeling of rejection (whether based in fact or on false beliefs) can make the person undergo a grief response; upon learning their anticipatory desire has been dashed. This emotional response to rejection can manifest itself as symptoms ranging from a vague sadness to major depression. The rejected person may have feelings of helplessness and perceiving they are at the mercy of presumed rejecter. So much of rejection is cause by the feeling of inadequacies. We give too much power to the party we feel is rejecting us. The depth of feeling or the emotional impact felt as a result of perceived rejection may tangibly demonstrate the importance we give to the party or situation we feel has rejected us. If the show was a flea market fill with junk you would feel no sting if they said no to you showing in their venue. You would automatically think they believe my work is too good for their place. Then on other hand if Mr. Five Star Show rejects your application fear raises its ugly head and you rationalize my work is not good enough. If the plainest girl on campus tells you no, its okay because you really didn't want to date her. If the queen of the campus says no then it's because you have a pimple, shoes need shining, teeth brushed, hair combed or some reason why she said no. Her no is a clear rejection and you are the reason. When in truth she may be in love with someone and is not dating others.

Artist deal with rejections in various ways. Some may try to correct the situation and bring the rejecting person, show or gallery under their control so they can address the rejection. Others take the slight personal and decide to fold their tent and give up. The emotion of rejection can lead to unmanageable fears requiring medical intervention.

People avoid or cope with rejection in various ways. Abraham Lincoln wrote innocuous letters, stuck them in his desk, but never mailed them. I have found people to be like a river; we tend to travel the path of least resistance. Rather than face a difficult problem we flow with the well-worn path. Artists complain when I say they need to physically visit a gallery before they just up and ship them a parcel of art. One oriental girl from southern California shipped thirty paintings to a gallery in Seattle. She never visited the gallery. When she came to me it was too late. The gallery had sold several pieces and had refused to return the others. This young artist spoke very little English and was not being successful in getting the remaining inventory returned. I recommended that she ask an English-speaking friend with a firm voice to call the gallery and demand the return of her art. My suggestion worked; however, she was never paid on the art sold.

Whiteism: Look before you leap.

President Lincoln enlisted a hot air balloon enthusiast to use his balloons to spy on the Confederate movements. This was cutting edge ahead of the curve military genius. The balloonist mission was to use long tie ropes and make his balloon stationary. Then with a spyglass, tell a telegraph operator in the basket the number and location of the enemy. In one battlefield, the scouts on the ground counted 60,000 troops when in fact there were only 13,000. The Union had 40,000, but with the land report of 60,000 the generals were scared to attach the Confederates. The reason for the miss count by the spies on the ground was caused by brilliant Confederate maneuvers. The south would march two thousand men across an open field dispense into the trees, run back to the starting point, gather and march across the field again. They made two thousand look like twenty. They built wooden cannons and erected empty tents. The man in the balloon counted the correct number. He advised President Lincoln who in turn ordered an immediate attack. Lincoln's generals dismissed the information by the man in the balloon as being unreliable. The generals' rejection of advanced technology prolonged the war and cost thousands and thousands of lives. Lincoln could have shortened the war had his ideas not been rejected.

You may have exceptional art but for reasons outside you or the skill of your work a gallery or show will not see the true value. In most cases, whatever you dream up is not the real reason you were turned down or missed the sale.

I don't want to imply you need to eliminate all fear. I excelled because I was scared my children would go without food and shelter. I was afraid to fail. There was a big black hole somewhere in front of me and if I didn't sell, well, I would step in never to be seen again. In many ways I was like my friend's parrot. He owned a parrot that swore like a sailor? This parrot was so terrible it could cuss for five minutes straight without repeating itself. My friend finally got tired of his parrot's horrible speech and decided to do something about it. He grabbed the parrot by the throat, shook it really hard, and yelled, QUIT IT! Every time his parrot said something ungodly he would shake its neck. But this just made the parrot mad and it swore more than ever.

Next my friend tried locking the bird in a kitchen cabinet. This really aggravated the parrot and it clawed and scratched furiously until my friend finally let him out. The moment the bird was free it released a fury in a torrent of language so horrible it could never be repeated.

At that point, my friend was so frustrated that he threw the parrot into the freezer. For the first few seconds the parrot made a terrible amount of noise in protest to this treatment, kicking, clawing, and thrashing about. But after a few minutes the big bird suddenly went very quiet.

As the silence grew longer, my friend started to think that the parrot may be hurt. After a couple few more minutes of silence he became worried and opened up the freezer door. The parrot calmly climbed onto the man's outstretched arm and said, Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I'll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on. No more nasty words will ever come from this beak

Of course, my buddy was astounded. He couldn't understand the transformation that had come over his unruly parrot. But then the parrot asked, By the way, what did the chicken do?

What did I say at the beginning of this chapter? Fear is false evidence appearing real. To the parrot he just knew the chicken was in the frozen state because of something he did wrong. I wrote an artist whom I like several times and got no reply. This is an artist I've helped dozens of times over the years and thought we had a good relationship. Then they went silent. I became concerned I somehow offended them. You know me I can have an acrid tongue and I'm never short on opinion. After a year or so of them not answering, I looked up their website and used their contact information to send them a consolatory message. In the new message I told her I was sorry if I offended. I was really concerned in my zeal to help I rubbed her the wrong way. The following morning I received a wonderful, glad to hear from you email. Seems her Spam blocker prevented my messages from reaching her. All these what ifs I invented were in my mind and had nothing to do with the actual truth. I was like the parrot. My prediction was based on false information. Before you allow fear to cloud the issue; get the facts straight. My artist friend was not rejecting my messages, but her Spam blocker was. She had no idea I had written her and she didn't want to trouble anyone as important as Jack White.

I can dispel her idea of my celebrity. I'm just a west Texas cowboy and broken down football player who took the time to write books and articles to help my fellow travelers. I'm grateful for the modicum of success my mate and I have enjoyed but we don't consider ourselves to be better than anyone. So much of what we fear as being a rejection is our perception of the situation.

An African American artist emailed to complain about racial discrimination. He made application to a big southern city outdoor show. The promoters kept the jury fee money but rejected his application. He screamed to me, It's because of my color. That bunch of honky crackers doesn't want a Brother showing along side their lily white, straight laced crowd.

I emailed back and asked him what was the name of the show?

I could feel the heat in his email. I could almost hear the chains he felt about to be placed around his legs. He used some strong explicative to paint a racist show promoter and those who juried the entrants. I just happened to be familiar with the show in question and knew for a fact it was fully in compliance with integration. The most ironic thing was his connecting his rejection to racism. I knew two African artists who were doing that show. I didn't mention them but asked about the application. Was there a place on the form that asked about race? If so then we had a Civil Rights case.

I knew what his reply would be before he responded. In minutes I got his answer, No there was no place to check for race but somehow they knew. They found out and banned me.

He was shocked when I told him the names of the two African American artist juried