the work does not conceal its maker

i read half the email in a parking lot before lunch. the sun on the windshield, lunch waiting, and then this: someone writing to say the work wasn't serious enough to matter.

confusion first. then something clearer: someone wanted this to land.

i sat with it. talked it through with my husband. a name came to mind, uninvited.

the message concealed its author. it borrowed the name of a gallery to speak with authority it hadn't earned. it did not conceal its aim.

judgement is not the same as accountability.

making the work openly means people will misread it, use it, dismiss it. sometimes, malice.

what remained was not the criticism. it was the distance between making something in your own name and speaking from behind a mask.