This week I learned that I was accepted into the Baer Art Center residency in northern Iceland for the month of July 2016. It's difficult to get into this residency and so I was thrilled to find out that I was one of ten artists accepted: five for June and five for July. It makes me think of all the times I have experienced rejections in my art career. Early on, I found rejections from juried shows devastating and I used to withdraw from artmaking for a bit to have a little sulk. A week or so later, I'd recover and realize I was going to paint anyway. For years, I painted representationally and had sell-out exhibitions every year. Smugly, I figured that I'd always have sell-out shows! But then I experienced growing pains. My work gradually changed and I experimented in many directions in painting, eventually settling into abstraction. Along the way, I had my first exhibition that sold absolutely nothing. Nothing. Not only nothing at the opening, but nothing for the wh...