When I received the call telling me I didn’t get the job, I was devastated.
On the opposite end of the line, the producer explained it to me.
The other candidate had a journalism degree, he said, and had even completed an internship in a newsroom. My credentials, on the other hand, just didn’t match what they were looking for. I was a recent graduate with degrees in Cinema & Comparative Literature and Theatre Arts, and although I had some experience producing content for television, it just wasn’t enough to make me a viable candidate to become the station’s new morning show video editor.
I thanked the producer for his time and hung up the phone. So much for that, I thought, and began searching job listings online.
Less than a week later, the same producer called me.
“Are you still interested in the job?” he asked.
“Of course!” I told him.
“Can you start tomorrow?”
I said I’d be there.
As it turns out, the person he’d hired had quit. The job had been too stressful, too demanding, too fast-paced. The new hire had had enough after three days and walked out of the news station, refusing to return.
So the position was mine. It had fallen to the candidate whose credentials were lacking.
I discovered the newsroom was stressful, it was demanding, it was fast-paced — but I stuck it out. My mornings began at 1 AM and my day would proceed at breakneck speed and continue non-stop. It didn’t help that the station had yet to adopt a fully digital workflow, which meant I had to do a lot of legwork sprinting between departments, desks, and archives to find the tapes I needed to cut video together. Once I had a piece edited and ready for air, I would have to run it down to the technicians in the broadcast bay, sometimes with only a moment to spare before it was due to play live. Then I’d have to repeat the process again for the second morning show I was responsible for.
It was exhausting.
Several weeks after I started, the producer who’d hired me pulled me aside. He looked a bit sheepish.
“Seriously, Nick, you’re doing great,” he told me. “I’ve never seen anyone pick this up so quickly. I’m sorry I didn’t hire you right off the bat.”
It was a touching moment, and I appreciated his comments. In the chaos that was the newsroom my contribution was making an impression — and that made me proud.
But when I got home, something had shifted inside me. I was feeling something unexpected.
I was angry.
My suitability for the job was evident. I had demonstrated that fact to those whose first inclination was to pass me up. By any stretch, that was a victory. But something about the experience got under my skin, and I struggled to understand what it was.
Then it hit me.
The reason I felt angry was because the metric by which the news station determined fitness was all wrong. It was so wrong, in fact, that it had completely dismissed demonstrable abilities I possessed in favor of the credentials of another, credentials which offered little in the way of verifying task suitability. I had applied for the position because I knew I could do the job, and not in an abstract or hopeful sense. I had genuine experience and skills which, although they had not been gained within the context of a newsroom, were clearly applicable to the job needing done. I found it insulting that my capability had been doubted simply because I lacked a missive from the limited domain of journalism.
I realized what I had come up against was a common cognitive bias that maintains there are definable, established paths leading towards achievement — that there is only one way to do things, and that way is easily tracked by reviewing tic marks next to a list of discrete requirements. If you know anything about the background of the most successful innovators in any given field you know this is not the case. But the bias remains. We are still taught to believe in an ironclad, procedural approach to success.
And the result of this bias isn’t always external resistance. In many cases it prevents us from believing we are capable ourselves. It can put a damper on our efforts, or lead us to give up altogether.
Case in point, Lander artist Rosie Ratigan questioned whether she would be able to attain her creative aspirations because of this very same ingrained bias.
“I think the greatest misconception for me and maybe for others, is that you need a formal art education [to become an artist],” she told me.
Rosie Ratigan was raised in Waconia, Minnesota, where her love of art burgeoned while attending the Catholic Church and school. “The church was filled with beautiful paintings, sculptors, statues,” she told me. “One statue, which was life size [and] probably carved from marble, was a copy similar to The Pietà by Michelangelo. The ceiling above the alter was a large dome, beautifully painted with stars in the sky and angels. All the artwork told a story and I was in awe [from] a very young age.” And at school, Fridays became her favorite day of the week. That was when the nuns passed out pieces of drawing paper and Rosie was allowed to spend some blissful moments creating work of her own.
It was, in a word, “Heaven”.
Later, after moving to Wyoming, her opportunities for art-making seemed to disappear. Instead, her time went towards raising a family and running a business named Heavenly Everlastings out of Black Mountain Ranch. For over a decade she dealt in antique furniture and dried flowers, and taught arranging classes in addition to helping to run a family bed & breakfast and recreation business. Her weekends were spent riding or skiing in Jackson. Her burning desire to become an artist had been set to the wayside.
That changed in 2009.
“I was blessed with an early retirement and finally had the time to pursue painting and art,” Rosie said. Her efforts became dedicated to learning and skill-building. She took part in painting workshops and began taking private lessons from local artists. “I learned so much,” she told me. “Drawing, color mixing, color theory, setting up my palette, framing, and even portrait painting.” She was given assignments to complete at home and worked hard to execute them utilizing the insights she’d gained.
But still, even as she committed herself to the craft, she felt uncertain. “I doubted that I could create art and could be good enough to draw and paint like my mentors,” she told me. The question of whether she had started too late or if she had been sidetracked for too long weighed on her.
Success felt like an implausible outcome.
Examples of what constitutes success in the world of art are easy to come by. We are shown what it is to be successful in social media content depicting the sleek jet-setting lifestyles of celebrity artists. We learn what it means as we absorb the material publicized by the most recognizable auction houses. We visualize its impact when we learn how astonishing the prices for single works of art have become. In short, we are taught to believe in a specific type of creative achievement with a specific outcome, namely one resulting in wealth and prestige.
Unfortunately, this is a propagandized construction with few parallels to actual excellence. Even more distressing is the fact that this synthesized narrative does little except increase profit for select stakeholders whose interests rarely extend beyond their own pocketbooks. The best example of this can be found in the domain of contemporary art, where questionable economic practices and marketing prowess are the primary factors determining artistic accomplishment.
Many of us shake our heads when we hear stories about the contemporary art market. We scoff and tell ourselves we haven’t fallen into the same outlandish cognitive traps that allow people to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on work most reasonable people wouldn’t be caught dead displaying in their own homes. But this is a trap in and of itself. The fact is, the same skewed concepts that lead people to act so outrageously have similarly had their effect on us. They have already infiltrated the way we discuss art, shifted our impressions of its cultural responsibilities, even changed the way we approach art education. The context through which we consider a life in the arts has evolved (or devolved, depending on how you view it) into something that resembles a carefully crafted brand, complete with lifestyle expectations. It proposes there is an accepted procedure to attaining success in the arts — and because of this, many otherwise talented artists are taught to doubt they “have what it takes” or denied support outright because they fail to fit the mold.
Take, for instance, a reflection made by arts economist Don Thompson who stated, “artists who do not find mainstream gallery representation within a year or two of graduation are unlikely ever to achieve high prices, or see their work appear at fairs or auctions or in art magazines.” (from The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art p.42) The reason for this has nothing to do with the quality of artists’ work, rather it is the direct result of a marketing apparatus choosing its winners and committing to them. Even more disturbing is the lasting effect this has on those left behind, placing them in a vicious cycle that prevents them from earning high prices or acclaim while simultaneously punishing them for not having earned them — all this when the metric used to assess “losers” is, in actuality, an arbitrary fabrication and in no way an honest measure of excellence.
We can see how toxic a distorted image of success can be… but still we find ourselves falling prey to the same concoction time and time again. Think about what we mean when we talk about “failed artists.” Did they fail to make art? Did they fail to pick up a brush, wield a pencil, or work the clay? Did their creative faculties fail them in some way? No. When we refer to “failed artists” that is not what we mean at all. Instead, we mean those who’ve failed to achieve a particular notion of success that happens to be measured in dollars, cents and acclaim. “Failed artists” are simply those who’ve failed to live up to arbitrary standards promoted by clever marketers, dealers, and collectors whose primary motivation revolves around profit and status for themselves. The content of the art is lost, drowned out by the sound of an uproarious contextual fiction that has nothing to do with the work itself.
The specter of failure looms large in the mind of all artists, even those who claim to care little for material rewards. Most who anguish over technique are still under the thrall of materialistic influence, though they may not realize it themselves. Success, they believe, lies in mastery. But mastery of what? The techniques employed by artists are vast and there is no consensus regarding what techniques are the “best”, by any stretch of the imagination. The possibilities have been — and will always remain — endless.
Many artists attempt to eliminate the apprehension this uncertainty engenders by coalescing around a particular “school” or “movement”. They diligently utilize techniques prescribed by manifesto — written or otherwise — with few considerations as to the reasons why. What they fail to appreciate is history. Movements and schools have never been immune from the influence of commercialism. In some cases, they were created to establish an aura of respectability around adherents in order to help them sell their work. In others, they were co-opted by marketers in later eras and promoted with the intention of increasing the value of works already held by collectors.
The stain of profiteering, as it turns out, covers all.
In the end, then, when an artist doubts herself — when she questions whether she can fit within a particular mold — the weight she feels is largely that of a fantasy propagated by commercial interests. It has little to do with true artistic potential. What this reveals is our bias towards a vision of success that leads down a singular path. It also reveals how the twisted objectives promoted in any given field can negatively effect the choices and mindset of its participants. In the case of art, this kind of bias can be strong enough to mask the intrinsic rewards that come from the act of creation itself. Oftentimes it’s enough to force an aspiring artist to call it quits before she’s even started.
But sometimes, an artist is able to rise despite these challenges.
Rosie Ratigan was able to rise above her own doubts, and it came about simply by sticking to her guns. The restrictive vision of what it meant to be a successful artist was out. The fact that she had sidelined her creative practice during her busy life and career, and that she lacked a formal art education, wasn’t something she was going to let hold her back. “If you don’t have that opportunity, go ahead and make another plan,” she told me. “If it’s in your heart to make art, go ahead at any age.”
She refused to let her potential be defined by arbitrary, extrinsic forces.
Among the many unique qualities Rosie exhibits, foremost is her exuberance, a love of craft that carries through into her work. It is this quality, I think, that has allowed her to thrive, the key to her pushing past her doubts during a time in her artistic development when many aspiring artists succumb to the pressures of expectation and simply give up. Look at a Ratigan painting and you’ll see what I mean. You can practically taste the joy. It radiates from the canvas in the way sunlight bursts off polished chrome. Bright bold color arrangements, softened contrast, and a palette which accentuates warmth — her work is a celebration of contentment.
“I like to say, if you paint what you love, your heart touches the canvas with your paintbrush,” she told me. “My hope is that the heart [in my] paintings bring beauty and love to all.”
And as for the uncertainty she felt early in her creative development? That has been consigned to the sidelines. Especially so, once she began reaping the rewards for her efforts. When her work began to find collectors, she told me, “I felt my heart and spirit soar.”
Rosie has been a member of Alchemy: an artists’ cooperative in Lander since its inception in 2015, providing her a venue where she can consistently display her art. The cooperative, conveniently located along the city’s main street, also offered her a place to combine her efforts alongside like-minded creatives. It proved an invaluable juncture in her career, giving her the chance to bring her artwork to the public without fearing the intervention of a middleman. Utilizing the same initiative that allowed her to find her own path towards creative competence, she again found a way to work towards her dream without feeling tethered by expectations common in the world of art. Instead of relying on gatekeepers (whose taste and intentions are, at times, questionable) she found a different path, bypassing them altogether to connect directly with those who would cherish her art.
And Rosie remains committed to finding an audience for her work, routinely participating in regional shows and competitions — and racking up awards and honors along the way. In 2017 her painting, “Golden Bison”, was included in the Governor’s Capital Art Exhibition in Cheyenne, and received the purchase award — it is now part of the permanent collection at the Wyoming State Museum. During the Wyoming Arts Council Plein Air in the Parks event in 2018, she received Best in Show with a piece that was later featured on the cover of the Council’s Artscapes magazine. In 2018 she received First Place at the Red Desert Audubon Show, held at Lander Art Center, and during the 2018 Wyoming Artists’ Association convention she received the President’s Award, second place in pastels and the purchase award. During the 2018 Wind River Valley Artists’ Guild Miniature Show and National Show, she received two first place awards for her pastels.
For someone who doubted her own potential, that list of accomplishments is long.
And what that reveals is just how wrong it is to believe in a singular approach to success. There are many roads leading towards achievement, and just as many ways to define it. In the words of historian and creativity researcher Arnold Toynbee, “No tool is omnicompetent. There is no such thing as a master-key that will unlock all doors.”
Imagine a world where people applied that wisdom in a meaningful way. Despair, doubt, angst, envy… much of it would dissipate like a cloud in a strong wind. When people are free to measure success in ways that are applicable to their own dreams, desires, and circumstance — rather than having to endure the prohibitive metrics of those whose interests they do not share — perhaps more of us would find those hidden things within us that allow us to soar.
Several months after I began work at the news station, a meeting was called in the office of the general manager. The room was crowded. It was full of dozens of people — technicians, cameramen, anchors, producers, and writers — many of whom had spent the entirety of their careers there, sharing the news with the wider community.
We were told that both morning news shows had been canceled.
“Profits have slowed,” the general manager told us. “We don’t foresee a way that will turn that around, so we’ve decided to pull the plug.”
He went on to praise the team. We had done excellent work. Our professionalism was admirable, and the strength of our journalism was prized by all. Both shows had become mainstays in the community, and that was something to be proud of. Then he dismissed us and we filed out of his office. There were many tears all around.
On my way home, I tried to come to terms with what had happened. If we had been doing such great work, and if the community valued what we were doing, how could this have come about? Did our vocational excellence mean nothing?
Then it hit me.
Once again, the metric by which the station measured achievement was distorted.
And we had all paid a price for it.
Rosie Ratigan’s work can be found at Alchemy: an artists’ cooperative in Lander, and The Curiosity Shoppe in Laramie, Wyoming. Additional information and work can be found online at www.rosieratigan.com, as well as on Facebook and Instagram.
Recently, Wyoming State Museum accepted her painting, “Wyoming Proud”, which had previously shown at the ‘Striving for Equality’ exhibition at Lander Art Center in 2019. She, along with several female artists, is also participating, at the invitation of Riverton Branch Library, in a March 2020 exhibition, called RAD Women, honoring Women’s History Month.
Currently, she is collaborating with artists Susan Grinels and Jenny Reeves Johnson for a forthcoming show, “Wild Silence… Perspectives by Wyoming Women”, at Lander Art Center, set to open in May of 2020.
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Nick Thornburg is a multidisciplinary artist and writer. Follow Nick and share the work on social media. Subscribe to his mailing list to keep up-to-date with upcoming features and other news.
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