‘The Rejection Show’ Is All About Being Accepted

Remember that rejection letter you got when you applied for (college / your dream job / a car loan / fill in the blank here)? Remember the pain, the anger, the disappointment, and how you filed away the letter, stashed it in a drawer, though you weren’t sure why, exactly? As a motivational tool, maybe, or with a vague hope that one day, after you’d made it big, you could dig it up, show it off and sneer: How could they have been so blind?

Well, it turns out that you weren’t alone. For proof, see the latest show at the Hatch Gallery in Mar Vista. Artist Chris Sicat has transformed the front room of this nondescript Venice Boulevard storefront into a hall of rejection and redemption, a delightful exhibit in which artists celebrate their failures by posting letters of rejection alongside their artwork.

The memos are overflowing with the inevitable platitudes and boilerplate apologies: “I regret your work does not meet our current needs. . . . At this time we are unable to accept your application for admission. . . . Please understand that this does not reflect on your talents but rather on our needs at present. . . . We wish you continued success in your artistic pursuits.”

Sicat, who tends the gallery, sent out no such missives. You cannot be rejected by “The Rejection Show.” Simply submitting the rejection letter gets you accepted. (That is, until Sicat runs out of space--a distinct possibility, given the gallery’s cozy dimensions.)

It turns out that the letter need not even relate to the artwork. The 30 or so displays include a collage of bounced checks, an array of art school rejection letters and a “let’s just be friends” e-mail from an unrequited lover.

But the undisputed winner is the rejection letter from a psychologist who, after an initial evaluation session with the artist, decided not to provide therapy, owing to the “uniqueness of your psychological landscape.” The good doctor politely recommends therapy and a medication consultation elsewhere, however. “Please look deeply into your childhood in order to evaluate your behavior,” he wrote.

What’s remarkable is not that people actually save these things, but that they readily submit them for public display.

“It’s definitely therapeutic,” said David Gallup, whose landscape painting, “Onions at Harvest,” hangs alongside a letter from a publishing firm that declined to create posters of his work. “Instead of making it something you’re ashamed of, you put it out in the open.”

In a way, the letters are tangible reminders of artists’ unfulfilled dreams, said Todd Bank, whose rejection from a West Hollywood gallery is on exhibit, next to his painting of TV’s Herman Munster.

“I think we save them because it’s our connection to something great--the greatness that we want to achieve in our work,” he said. “It’s like the only link we have to these goals and dreams . . . that we have this little letter, this stupid little letter.”

Artists deal with rejection more than most, of course. To earn a living, they must peddle their work to any and all possible comers, and most have grown accustomed to hearing “no,” whether it is from galleries, museums or foundations that award grants.

Michael Rubino, whose rejection letter from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is posted next to his painting “A Gathering of Adulterous Ex-Wives”--a dinner scene of three women seemingly oblivious to the camouflaged creatures in their midst--acknowledged that sharing the letters can work as a defense mechanism. “I have a sour grapes attitude--’Oh, they weren’t good enough for me anyway,’ ” he said.

The premise for “The Rejection Show” occurred to Sicat, he said, as he was developing an essay on rejection and acceptance for Coagula, an irreverent art magazine to which he contributes a bimonthly column under the moniker Chris Bastard.

He said the idea of the show is to deconstruct the very notion of rejection and acceptance--a two-sided coin that everyone can relate to.

“Not only in art, but you look at all other things in culture, [like] getting inside a club,” Sicat said. “Waiting there in line is a form of rejection. But if you’re on the guest list, boom! You’re in. How do you get on those guest lists? Who makes those guest lists? This doesn’t have a guest list. This doesn’t have any line. It’s an open bar.”

At the show’s opening, which drew about 200 people on a recent Friday night, viewers often scanned past the paintings, zeroing in on the letters.

“Our committee’s opinion is that your art needs to be more polished,” reads one note from the “No Ho” Theatre and Arts Festival. Then there’s a credit card denial from MBNA America, accompanying a sensual painting of a woman sprawled on a tile floor.

One colorful abstract painting hangs alongside a printed copy of an e-mail from a woman that reads, in Spanish: “Forgive me if I can’t return your feelings, but I can only see you as a friend. When I kissed you . . . maybe that was my mistake.”

A private studio space that occasionally hosts public displays, the Hatch reopened in February after a yearlong hiatus. (Located at 11306 Venice Blvd., the gallery will host “The Rejection Show” through July 23, open to the public Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m.)

Formerly the site of a punk-rock club, the gallery is wedged between a discount store and an Argentine takeout restaurant, a stone’s throw from the San Diego Freeway. There are no price tags on the wall, and the gallery gets no commission. Potential buyers must contact the artists directly. (The letters, by the way, are not for sale--though you might try asking.)

Once Sicat sent word of “The Rejection Show” to his friends in the art community, news spread swiftly via e-mail and word of mouth. Sicat also placed an ad in Coagula, and soon submissions were streaming in.

But some artists couldn’t get their works in as soon as Sicat wanted. That’s when he realized that to be fully accepting, he would have to do away with even the most basic restrictions, like deadlines. That meant accepting submissions right up until the show’s closing.

“That, therefore, deconstructed the idea of rejection,” he said. “There is no deadline. Acceptance is, therefore, forever.”

Cartoonist Lela Lee, whose “Angry Little Asian Girl” comic strip is displayed along with several rejection letters from cartoon syndicates, said there’s a sense of humor and relief in seeing others’ failures held up in public. “It made me feel a lot better, because I knew that I wasn’t alone,” she said.

Lee has received two more rejections in the last week, she said. She saved them both. “Now I don’t get sad about it, because it’s so funny to save your rejection letters and show everyone. I get kind of excited when I get rejections now.”