Installation view of "Rejection, Reject, Re..." at Pen and Brush NYC in 2019 seen with "In Waiting", and the artist, Arlene Rush. I initiated this series after I embarked upon archiving my 30-year artistic career and found a folder of rejection letters Each oversized enveloped was named after . The project discussed here not only represents the strategy of self-historicization, but also an investigation of the fraught and difficult politics connected to artistic practice in New York City. By looking historically at the practical conditions that artists face: high rents, limited space, the art market, gentrification, class warfare, gender bias, other kinds of discrimination, and the market-based metrics of success, I found these objects became more than the surplus of my practice; they became a lens through which these issues could be explored.