You can't win 'em all... Or can you?

As an artist, my work whether it be a song, a painting or performance is always going to be subject to subjective opinion. Not everybody will appreciate or even think that my art is good. My own grandmother thinks that my paintings are horrible and not "good" art. Mind you, she's one of those people who only likes paintings of fruit in bowls and landscapes. *barf*


Does that mean that I've failed as an artist? No, but the real question is should I view my artistic "failures" with the attitude that "You can't win 'em all?"


I used to think so. In fact, that's how I would comfort myself if my work didn't "speak" to someone or my art was rejected from a gallery, or I didn't get the role I auditioned for, or didn't win the contest I entered. However, now I've started viewing my own artistic endeavors from a different perspective. If my art is to be viewed subjectively, then why not view my art career subjectively? Now, every time I create something I view it as a win. The mere fact that I overcame the inital fear of failure the precedes the artistic process is a win in itself.


For example, in the past couple of weeks, I submitted myself for 10 films. Out of that, I got 5 auditions, and out of that I was definitely rejected for 2 of the roles, I rejected one because the producer was a chump, I'm still waiting to hear back from one production and finally, one director absolutely loved my work and my look, so she hired me. I could look at this like I won 1 out of 5 or my success rate is 20%, but why should I? After all, I was prepared for each audition, I brought my best work to the table and I showed up and did my job as an actor which was show the casting directors their options for casting the role. Whether or not they thought I was "right" for the role is totally out of my hands.

Another even better example is that I submitted myself to The Peak Perfomance Project which is a music contest on 100.5FM The Peak. In total I believe there were 740 entries and the top 20 would all go on to "rock n' roll bootcamp," recieve several thousands of dollars and get hooked up with indsutry professionals so they could further their careers, not to mention they'd get a whole bunch of radio play as well. I was hopeful so I kept my fingers crossed, but alas I recieved the standard mass rejection email that was sent to all 720 of us losers. The winning side of all of this was that I regularily post my new songs on my facebook page and my biggest highschool crush(who I pined over for 7 years) happened to listen my stuff. He sent me the longest message telling me how amazing and talented I was!

So I didn't get to go to Rock N' Roll Bootcamp, but I impressed the hell out of my highschool crush. Really when you get down to it, isn't that what being a rockstar is all about?

Frustration - A Journal Entry

Frustration! Seems like it's been the running theme of my life lately, and it's all come to a head now. The dog bites to the left side of my body are the icing on the bad medical luck cake that I've been force fed as of late. I've been suffering from some kind of neurological condition which has been very painful, but no definiative diagnosis yet. I'm not sure whats happening to me and so far neither are the doctors I've seen, but they've been tossing around ideas that range anywhere from stress, zoster sine herpete (shingles with no rach), post viral neuralgia, MS and brain tumors. Not only is the pain excruciating at times, but because I don't know which condition I have, I tend to think the worst. I've been mentally preparing myself for the worst.

Sometimes I'm entirely convinced that I don't have a lot of time left. I then comfort myself by telling myself that no one really knows how much time they actually have left. I could go out today with my family and be killed in a car accident 5 min. from my house.

I'm also just feeling so pissed off with myself for not working on anything music or art related for the past few days. I had big plans that involved painting a picture for Dan's birthday present, and recording some vocals and mixing a song, making and uploading some more videos for my YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/BorgQueenMusic. I did none of it!!!!!! Arghhhhhhh!!!! I'm vowing to myself to at least record the vocals tommorrow.

I feel like I'm going nowhere sometimes, and I'm racing against time because I fear that I'll either be dead or not young and beautiful enough that anyone will care to be entertained by me. It's killing me literally, according to my faithful, loving life partner Dan. I wish I didn't care sometimes. I wish I wasn't so driven sometimes, but then I wouldn't be me and I'd sit at home all day watching Spongebob Squarepants while laughing at the misfortunes of others on epicfail.com, which hilariously enough in itself would qualify as an "Epic Fail."

I hope to God that tommorrow is a new day motivationally and inspirationally speaking, and I can just get on with my day and not worry about whether or not I will succeed in this life as far as an artistic career is concerned. It's frustrating me to no end. I'm going to attempt to relax and not think about being sick, or in pain, or success, or financial concerns, or fear of failure, because I am blessed. I have Dan's love whether or not I paint him pictures and my wonderful son Soren who thinks I'm the coolest person ever. That's what I'm going to focus on today, and nothing else.