A friend of mine once told me, “it’s alright to think about your ex after you break up, but not about your ex when you’re waiting to have your work reviewed.”

(I have a smart friend. He knows who he is.)

We walk into interviews, meetings, studio visits, dates with boyfriends, and we just want to be loved. Have you ever noticed how much of life is spent wanting the approval of someone else? I mean, why else do people become alcoholics? Because if they’re not going to get it from the person they love, why not through other means?

But I digress….

I remember this one studio visit - spoiler alert - I scheduled it. For some reason whenever I have a studio visit I think that there will be no one else there and that the curator will want to exhibit my art and only my art. I keep this feeling inside me as I go about my days up until they enter my studio. “I’m the only artist they’re considering for this. They just want me. They just want me.” I’ve honestly never admitted this. But what better forum to do so than through a public one, right?

I feel ready, have the paintings prepared, and just feel good. No one else has art that looks like mine, that used the same technique as mine, that jumps out of the canvas in the same way as mine. I’m the only one like me so the rest of you artists can go…

And then they walk in and I see them. 5 other figurative painters who have work that looks like mine, maybe that used the same technique as I, and are all there to discuss the same exact exhibition.

The waves in my long locks deflate a little. The black dress that I thought looked so polished wilts just the slightest. What am I even doing here? Like I have a shot in hell at this...

This.

Is.

Just.

Silly.

I have to talk myself out of these rodent thoughts. They’re not going to help me outside the studio and they’re certainly not going to help me inside the studio. Stop thoughts. Stop. Go. Away.

And as I shake those thoughts away, my name is called. It’s my turn. I breathe deeply, kick my feet a few times (that’s the type of stuff you learn in grad school), and walk near the back wall of the studio where the paintings are hung like a messy jigsaw puzzle.

I’m standing there for a while.

“Less schooled, Jenny. Less schooled. Throw out everything you worked on and just be in the moment.”

And all the while, as I’m trying to be organic in my thoughts and pitching my painting, there’s that little voice that won’t go away. That watches me from up above. How can you be in the moment when you just feel observed from all angles- both inside the studio and outside it?

The longer I talk about my paintings in the studio the more I think they like me.

Like me. Love me. Want me. Need me.

I needed to lose you to love me, yeah ...
To love, love, yeah ... To love, love, yeah.

(Sorry, occasionally I break into a jam when it feels appropriate..)

And look, I don’t care if you’re the most gorgeous, sassiest, self-assured human being on the planet- we have all experienced these emotions (including you). They may be hidden under the “don’t act too desperate” repository, but you can’t help these prevalent thoughts. We just try not to talk about them often. However, I don’t think they make you indigent, I think they make you human. It all depends on how you handle it.

And, yes I booked this studio visit.

After six other visits, I booked the studio visit.

But you would think that after three studio visits they would love my work. But there’s no formula to being loved in the artworld business. Heck, there’s no formula to being loved in any business or relationship.

It can happen after the first date or it can happen after the seventh studio visit.

You just don’t know.