not invited.

That was the subject line of an email I got from the organizer of one of the art fairs I applied to last week.

I've had quite a mixture of feelings about that email this weekend. First off, before I even applied to that particular art fair, I wasn't entirely sure if it was a *fine* art fair or an arts & crafts fair. When you do fine art, you want to put your art in the places where the fine art collectors will see it.  So you look for fine art fairs to enter, to keep from wasting your time & money on places where you won't find serious buyers.

In light of that, I was praying on Saturday that God would have His hand in the whole thing. I didn't want to spend $300 on the booth fee, pay for two nights' hotel lodging, a U-Haul trailer rental to get my display there, and the gas money to get there, if I wasn't going to be able to sell enough to pay for all of that. Or even part of it.

So, when I got the email, my first reaction was that it was God telling me, "Not this one, Amy".

So I spent several hours saying, "It's okay. I'll keep working on my art and try again."  But later that evening, the emotions really kicked in and I had a good cry on Matt's shoulder about it all. The truth is, it is agonizingly difficult to be rejected, and it brought back memories from art school.  I really hope my subsequent rejection notices won't be quite so painful.

BUT...

I had been reading online last Friday about what you can learn from rejection. I did a bit of looking around online yesterday afternoon and I really feel that I need some more time to work on my art, just creating a cohesive body of work that a jury will take a look at and want in their art fair. So, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep working, keep at it, and apply for some more art fairs when I feel I have a quantity of work that is ready.

And in the meantime, there is that little matter of the other art fair to hear back from...