Today I want explore the complicated process of having our creative work — and ourselves — seen. Too often, our writing or art is lost amidst the responsibilities of life. We struggle to find the time to create, and when we do, we face a mix of confusing signals. This has always been best summed up in my favorite episode of the TV show, The Office.
On the show, Pam is a receptionist by day who has been taking art classes. Here she is at her first art show, her paintings thumbtacked to the wall. She stands there, lonely, her work on display for others to accept, reject, or in this case, ignore:
While a lot of friends and colleagues say they will stop by, only one or two actually do. Oscar struggles to find anything positive to say about the art:
They try to be supportive, but it’s been a long day at work, and they have other things on their mind. In this case, Gil criticizes Pam’s art, and she overhears it:
As she comes to the end of the night, she begins taking down her artwork. She was hoping for validation, but received just the opposite:
Then suddenly her boss Michael shows up, apologizing for being late. Look at this image, the artist waiting for the viewer to give feedback:
But then, one of the paintings connects with Michael, he sees something of himself in it:
His expression changes from one who is observing the “other,” an object, to one who is connecting with the art. In this image, Michael and the art are one:
The artist sees this. I mean, just look at her expression:
Michael looks at Pam and says, “I’m really proud of you.”
Out of nowhere, Pam hugs him. Someone sees her as an artist, and connects with her work:
This series of images illustrates so much of the journey that writers and artists go through — the apprehension of sharing your work, of wanting to be seen for what you create, and to have it connect with another human being in a meaningful way.
This reminded me of some stories my friend, artist Megan Carty, has shared with me. I gave her a call this week and asked her about the expectations we can have around having our work seen. Here she is at a recent art show of her work:
When I explained to Megan what I was writing about today, and the example of Pam from The Office, she immediately replied about her own art shows, “Most of them have been like that.” Then she went deep…
For her first solo show back in 2017, she was so excited to finally have her work out there. “I spent months getting the works ready, and pumped it up with Facebook ads. People told me they were coming. The host posted it all over their social media. My husband helped and bought wine from Costco and hors d’oeuvres. Someone told me to get a guestbook, so I did that, and had cards printed to hand out.”
She expected a crowd because so many people told her they were coming. She continues…
“Then the day came. My dad came down from Maine, which was very nice. Then a guy I went to high school with came up from Rhode Island. A friend of mine from my hometown was passing through, so she stopped in briefly. And that was it. A total of the 3 people one of them being my dad. It was crickets.”
“When I was loading up my car that night, I felt humiliated and embarrassed and rejected and dejected. My husband felt so bad for me, he watched me for six months put this work together for my first solo exhibition.”
Anyone who has ever tried to share what they create knows this feeling. But then, something special happened…
“When we were leaving , my dad gave me a big hug, and he whispered in my ear, ‘This is just the beginning. It may not be the beginning you imagined, but I’m proud of you.”
Then Megan talked about what she learned from this event and others like it:
“But it went on my resume as something I did. The woman who installed the work there loved it, and ended up buying an original from me. She also ended up licensing some prints. So it built the relationship with her that came from it. She kept saying ‘We should do another show with your new work.’”
“I had to really work on the mindset that this doesn’t mean me and my work are not valuable. It just means that people are busy and have their own plan. I need to be at the right place and the right time. A lot of it is luck and timing and you only create that by showing up, taking the risk over and over, and get back up when knocked down. It’s not about you personally.”
A couple years back, I wrote about a similar situation that author Stacy McAnultyfaced. She had recently published her 29th book, and organized a book event as a trivia night for her young readers at a bookstore. She said, “I was determined to make it work. I sent 160 letters to local educators—every science and English middle school teacher in the county. (Not the cheapest way to communicate. Stamps are $$$) This wasn’t just a reading. It was fun trivia that I spent hours creating. I also had prizes and snacks.”
Well, the result was what authors have nightmares about. This is the crowd 10 minutes after the event started:
But then…
A reader showed up!
Stacy shares:
“At about 4:15, a young reader came in with his mom and sister. He was clutching a worn copy of [my book] The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl. He said that he loved my books. His mom bought him the new book as a birthday gift. The three of them played trivia with me. They got all the prizes and snacks. We had a BLAST! His mom told me he begged to come. She was late because she had to drive carpool and she also had a meeting later in the evening. She almost said no, but her son begged. After it was over, the bookseller said that I made that reader’s day. Maybe but he certainly made mine. To show my appreciation, I bought him a copy of [my book] Millionaires for the Month, as a birthday present.”
How did this moment happen? Well, remember all those letters that Stacy sent out? She says, “I asked the young reader how he knew about this event. (The family didn’t come to downtown Winston-Salem often, and I think it was his first time at the store.) He said his Language Arts teacher told him. He had the letter and swag I’d sent to educators. The teacher connected us.”
So I ask you: was this worth it? Worth it for Stacy to impact the life of one reader with all this effort? I think so.
For what you create and for how you share it with the world, I encourage you to:
- Keep creating.
- Focus on your unique voice.
- Don’t wait to share until you feel everything is ‘perfect.’ Start this process of learning early.
- Recognize and engage the people in front of you who show up.
- Challenge your assumptions about what works.
- Try new things.
For my paid subscribers this week I shared a video on what to do if finding your readers feels impossible. It talks about the exhaustion of always seeking — but never finding — your ideal readers. You can see a preview and become a paid subscriber here.
Thank you for being here with me.
-Dan