The Joy and the Limits of Picking Yourself

A guest post by the super hard-working DMV artist Michele Banks!

The Joy and the Limits of Picking Yourself

A dozen years ago, Seth Godin wrote a blog post called Reject the Tyranny of Being Picked: Pick Yourself. It was a rallying cry for creators to bypass the gatekeepers and simply get on with doing what they want to do. Can’t get a book contract? Self-publish. No record deal? Start posting your songs online.

Godin says, “It’s a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that comes from a publisher or talk show host or even a blogger saying, “I pick you.” Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you–that Prince Charming has chosen another house–then you can actually get to work.”

Michele Banks - Detail from Purkinje Neuron in Black and Indigo, Ink on Yupo, 2023

Godin’s piece, which came out as I was starting to sell my art online, was tremendously heartening to me. After some bruising encounters with galleries and juried group shows, it was encouraging to consider that there might be another way. Who needs gallery representation? So what if a curator won’t choose you? You can get out there and find your own audience.  And so I did: I’ve sold thousands of paintings in the intervening years.  

Yes, thousands, and I not only painted them all, I matted them, photographed them, described them, listed them, packed them in cardboard and took them to the post office.

I take great pride and satisfaction in the fact that I did all those things myself.

I picked myself, and it worked.

But of course I didn’t do it all on my own.                     

And of course I could not completely avoid gatekeepers.

I started out selling online on Makers Market, a sadly short-lived joint project by Make Magazine and BoingBoing. I applied, and I got picked. And as a result, Make and BoingBoing shared my work with a huge audience, one I might never equal on my own.(After Makers Market folded, I opened my Etsy shop)

Pick me! From the Cells to the Stars, a 2011 watercolor, was featured in BrainPickings, giving me a publicity boost. Indigo Coronavirus (ink, 2020) was acquired by the National Academies of Science, a little institutional cred.

I still make a big chunk of my income from selling my art at festivals. And quite often festival jurors do not pick me, but if I want to get my work in front of their audience, I have to keep applying and submitting to the judgement of those gatekeepers. There’s no setting up a tent on my street and declaring myself a fine art festival.

Yes, I could rent an apartment in another city, set up a studio, and call it a residency.

Yes, I could set up an online fundraiser for myself and call it a grant.

But I have not done that.  I’ve applied for grants and residencies the usual way, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  After years of blanket rejection, I stopped applying for gallery shows. But I have not stopped showing in galleries!  Anything I’ve shown in a gallery over the last six years has been a product of, yes, waiting around to get asked. Sorry, Seth.

Do I have a point here beyond “it’s complicated?”

Yes.

Picking yourself is completely valid as a mantra and a strategy. You really do have to pick yourself, to put yourself out there, to present your work to the public and say, “look at this thing I made.”  By all means, make a great website, a stunning Instagram account, an online shop, a newsletter. Those are all things you can create and control on your own.

But most creators at some point must engage with gatekeepers. You need shows. You need publicity. You have to choose between the effort of creating all this on your own or applying and hoping to get picked. Because gatekeepers are also boosters.

I doubt that most people get into the business of running galleries or art festivals or giving out grants because they crave the adrenaline rush of rejecting artists. (Okay, some of them might, but let’s not go there) They do it because they want to support artists and provide them with a platform for their work. As an artist, you can and should build your own platform, but it’s fine to stand on someone else’s now and then. It’s probably bigger than your personal platform, and can maybe boost you up a little higher.

I believe in the message of picking yourself: it’s essential. But the part where Godin says “no one is going to select you” is far too harsh. It’s true that toiling over your art in obscurity and simply waiting for a genius grant is unlikely to succeed. But if you make good work, tell your story compellingly, choose your opportunities thoughtfully, and cultivate your network with kindness, you put yourself in position to get picked.

New Art

I have not forgotten that by far the most important people who pick me are the buyers of my art!  While I’ve mostly been busy painting dozens of brains and neurons for the upcoming Society for Neuroscience meeting, I’ve recently added 15 new paintings to my Etsy shop, including watercolor brains, viruses in both watercolor and ink, and several new sayings of the Algorithm.  Find them here.

Upcoming DC Art Events

I have a few more IRL events in DC before the end of the year! Find me here

November 11-15: Neuroscience 2023

November 18: Dumbarton House Makers Market

December 2:  Dupont Circle Holiday Pop-up

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