The Successful Failure

The following appeared in The Chicago Reader
on March 25, 2005

by Deanna Isaacs

Kansas City gallery owner Paul Dorrell was in town last week, dispensing advice and hawking his autobiographical survival guide, Living the Artist's Life, at the Chicago Artists' Coalition Business of Art conference and the Barnes & Noble at Old Orchard. An unpublished novelist, Dorrell says he's gotten 177 rejections from publishers, 35 for this book alone. He only made it into print after he fired his New York agent and took things into his own hands, finding a Kansas City publisher and working with a travel budget that has him bunking at Motel 6. But he's on a roll now: Living the Artist's Life is in its second printing and will be used in classes at 80 universities.

Dorrell got into the gallery business to support his fiction habit, somehow unaware that most galleries are money pits. After three years he was $100,000 in debt, punching holes in his bedroom wall and thinking things couldn't get worse. Then his gallery burned. He'd let the insurance lapse three weeks earlier, but didn't let it defeat him. He had a fire sale, moved to a better location, and six months later landed a major commission that saved his ass. Before long, Steven Spielberg and Charles Schulz were on his client list. So here's his advice: beware of drugs, booze, the bohemian life, television, and the Internet. Read, love, count your blessings, follow your intuition, be disciplined and persistent, and when you sign on with a gallery, pick one that needs to make sales to stay in business.

A Guide to Growing, Persevering, and Succeeding in the Art World