On Rejection: Nishant Jain

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Hi Nishant! Tell us about a time you experienced rejection.

This year, I emailed local Vancouver news media with an application for a column of my drawings made around the city. One of them said they "already have a cartoonist", and the other two did not even reply.

Also, this year I applied to make a podcast for the global urban sketchers symposium (happening for the first time since COVID). For context, I am the showrunner of the SneakyArt Podcast, a show about urban sketching and drawing on location. My application was rejected although "generally well received".

How are you getting over it?

To be honest, poorly. I suppose I will move on in time. The life of a freelancer, after all, is riddled with rejections. But I thought I had made very good applications this year, with strong credentials and unique qualifications. So I am not able to explain these rejections to myself. Every few days my mind will remind me of these rejections. It slows me down, hurts my work, and leaves me with self-doubt and loathing.

If you could go back and tell yourself anything right before that experience, what would you say?

I have lived with so many rejections, that I begin to prepare for it the moment after sending any application. I would tell myself what I tell myself every other day - that rejections are supposed to hurt. All the big fails should hurt. And we should always feel the hurt. To be immune to it would make me less human. And my humanity is essential to my art. I just have to keep going.

You make sneaky art--what does sneaky art mean to you, and how does it help you create?

SneakyArt began as a way to understand my foreign world. I had just moved to the US, and decided to walk around with a sketchbook and pen in hand. This practice helped me become comfortable in unfamiliar surroundings, relate with the strangers around me, and feel at home in a new environment.

So I draw as a way to illustrate similarities between people. I draw to venerate the concept of 'the city', as a place for strangers to coexist and build something greater than the sum of its parts. The pandemic has left us disconnected from larger communities. My hope is that Sneaky Art will help us again appreciate the reason why we choose to live around other people, and the role we play in each other's lives.

What are you working on now?

I did NaNoWriMo this November to complete the proposal and make a list of potential literary agents.