The Rejection Suite – A new week, a new series of old. This one is my ‘rejection letter’ series. I applied for full-time, college level teaching jobs in fine art for approximately 8 years, from 1985-1993. I never did land that job. I started to take the rejection letters and collage some of my rejected photos on top of the letter. I let show through from the letter a word or series of words that had power and meaning out of context.
I had gone down to Oklahoma City from my home in Tulsa (about 100 miles) to drop off my presentation for the upcoming Photoslam event. I decided to take the day and check out some galleries down that way, something I really hadn’t done before.
When I entered the ‘Untitled’ [art space] gallery this woman was at the door greeting people, explaining the current show, etc. She was very helpful about explaining how the show came about (it was a year end showing of multiple grant recipients’ work).
We got to talking about me being an artist since I had my camera with me, and I asked her if she was as well. She turned out to be an art historian in training, going to college.
The gallery was somewhat dark, but there were large windows in the front that let in great ambient light. Her eyes, as is obvious, were brilliant blue. I told her about my reason for being in OKC, and explained the ‘truth’ project I would present at the show. I asked her if she would be willing to pose for a collage from the truth series as well and she thought it would be a cool idea.
One of the artists in the gallery had large constructions. One of the constructions had a shredder attached to it that was churning out shredded paper very slowly. Photos of that, with photos of her were the perfect combination for what I learned about her as we talked; her life, doubts, fears, wonderings, etc.
