I have a drawing exhibition opening tonight. Like most artists facing an opening, I feel a mix of excitement and dread. What if I walk in the room and all the drawings have been framed upside down? What if I suddenly hate all of them? What if this, and what if that? “I’m thrilled” plays ball in my head with “Let’s just get this over with.”

Actors and musicians have openings all the time. They have their first opening night, which must be particularly nerve-racking, but after that, surely they get used to the butterflies. Performance art of any kind requires this strength, at the very least. Besides, performance artists thrive off the applause of their audiences.

But artists are entirely different. We live in our studios for hours, days, months and even years with no one seeing what we do. We’re not performers. We like a certain distance to be maintained between ourselves and the work we make.  We’re sort of like groundhogs that live underground most of the time, only poking up above ground whenever it’s absolutely necessary.

I’m unclear when openings for individual artists first began, although I figure it must have started with modernism. The premodern vernissage (the word means “varnishing day”) was an event for multiple artists who were members of the academy. The opening reception for a single artist, on the other hand, required “one-person” shows, in galleries and museums. In any event, there were one-person shows in the early 20th century, and by the time of the abstract expressionists, the opening reception for a one-person exhibition, with the artist standing around like a beefeater while people mill about talking and looking at the work, was as fully a part of an art exhibition as the art itself.

The opening, although gratifying that part of the artist that yearns for applause and approval, is difficult for most artists I know. If a play doesn’t command an audience, it shuts down. Galleries and museums, on the other hand, don’t shut down shows because no one comes, or attendance is poor, or no sales take place, or no one likes the art. The reaction to art is much more difficult to get a hold of, and is often vague and unclear, or not known or understood right away. At the end of an opening, artists leave with the feeling that nothing has happened.

Modern artists have taught themselves to live with both the uncertainty of their art and the uncertainty of the response to it. Most console themselves that no matter what the response, deep down their art is good. Whatever people think about their art (and what they say they think is rarely the truth), artists go on. They’re equipped with spectacular perseverance.  When the show closes, they always go right back underground to make more art.