It’s cool to lose your cool: When expectations let you down

My summer is unusually busy this year—and not in the fun, “beach and road trips” kind of way. No, I’ve been stuck at my desk for hours on end, every single day. If I learned anything this season, it’s this: never—ever—schedule deadlines during summer. Major mistake.

Needless to say, I’ve become extremely picky about how I spend my precious scraps of free time. The list is short. Ruthlessly short. But art made the cut—so I decided to submit my recent performance, originally presented at Pausa Art House on May 1st, to Hallwalls’ 51st Annual Members Exhibition.

I pulled the classic “Ella” move and stayed up one night putting together a 27-minute video excerpt with subtitles. I was really excited—I gave myself permission to take the evening off. I even dressed up.

Sue—my good friend and yoga teacher—and I showed up ready for art and some good gallery people-watching.

We got there early. Like, 15 minutes early. I figured we’d beat the crowd. Wrong. The place was already buzzing with artists doing the annual ritual: scanning the walls to find their piece, then pretending to casually stumble upon it after the third lap.

I wasn’t worried though. Mine was a video. Easy to spot, right? Except… it wasn’t. I kept walking in circles. Lap three and still nothing. Just me, looping like a confused art ghost.

Then disbelief. Gary Wolfe—a respected artist— informed me he saw my name under a video that turned out to be… archival gallery footage. Not my work. Just a random glitch in the art matrix.

Lost my cool.

Eventually, the folks at Hallwalls got it fixed. It took a couple of hours, a few awkward conversations, and a lot of deep breathing.

Moral of the story? Wherever you go, whatever you do, keep your expectations in check.
Especially if it’s an opening night, your reputation at stake, and you showed up in heels.

But if you slip? Don’t beat yourself up. Let it go. It’s cool to lose your cool.