Adam's Apple

​I was once fortunate enough to secure exclusive opening-night tickets to Roy Lichtenstein’s retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The show was spectacular, spanning his early experiments to his latest works—mind-blowing in scope and execution. Lichtenstein had profoundly influenced me, so I was thrilled to be there.

 

As I entered the first gallery, a massive, iconic Donald Duck painting—priceless and enshrined in art history—hung on the right wall. A man and woman stood beneath it, gazing up. The man scoffed, “Can you believe this crap is worth millions?” Then he shuffled off, like a cranky old man farting in an elevator and leaving others to deal with the stench. I felt instantly deflated, disgusted by such willful ignorance.

 

The moment stung because it echoed an earlier wound. Years before, I had been one of only nineteen artists selected from 280 submissions for a prestigious national competition at the Michael Milken Institute in Woodland Hills, California. My painting, Napoleon’s Gaza, was on display in their gallery. One evening, as I stood proudly beside it, an older couple approached. The husband peered at the canvas, turned to his wife, and muttered, “I don’t see Napoleon anywhere,” before walking away.

 

That comment had crushed me at the time. Yet the triumph far outweighed the slight: the institute’s exacting standards, the Los Angeles Times running a two-page spread in the Calendar section with two jurors posing in front of my painting. My very first competition—and I was already in a major newspaper.

 

Strangely enough, just two weeks later, I made the front page of the Great Falls Tribune Calendar section: a full-color photo of my painting Custer’s Last Stand. I was also one of six artists selected for their live auction—an established event in a renowned Western art community that accepted only twenty-two emerging artists alongside sixty-six modern Western masters. Once again, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and exhilaration.

 

In the end, I doubt Roy Lichtenstein would have cared about that couple’s sneer. His life was filled with accolades that drowned out the noise. Still, it’s hard to shrug off casual cruelty. We should all be mindful of what comes out of our mouths.

 

Strangely enough, I now welcome that kind of negativity. The payoff for hard work—being scorned by the ungifted—delivers intense dividends to those who persist.