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Acceptance
October 8, 2007
Competitions, online galleries and juried exhibitions
Three works were accepted into Artjury.com’s 2007 Fall / Winter National Online Juried Exhibition: Galahs in Traffic, Mayan Bowl Chair, and Linden Sunset.
There’s controversy that entering competitions is purely about vanity. For us who need to self-promote, we understand that it’s more about career stability and advancement than the ego. Still the question of ego exists, so a little devil-artist on the shoulder is good to have because we need to stay tuned to our arts’ original meaning and purpose. Evaluation is always in order. For the most part, self-promotion is personal, often uncomfortable, and a very humbling and enlightening experience rather than an egoistic one. We need to search deep for our very best, and stay open to every opinion.
Acceptance by peers means a lot, but accepted or not, honest feedback and interaction with those who also love what they do and know what they’re talking about, or hearing from those who appreciate art and enjoy discussing it, is really beneficial. We encourage each other, and straight-forward critiques go a long way. Any kind of response helps us consider the direction we will take moving forward.
Recognition and validation are helpful because faith in this vocation waxes and wanes. Many of us ask from time to time: What am I doing this for? or: What’s the big deal about Art anyway? We are so closely involved with it as daily work that the personal and the professional are one and the same. Art is our life, and monetary or “ribbon-ary” validation is encouraging! Primarily though, motivation must be self-perpetuated. For work to work, we need to love what we do. No amount or content of external comments affects the genuine drive to create it.
If we haven’t yet captured our big break with gallery representation, it takes a long time to learn the do’s and don’ts, and it’s surprising that there are so many expectations. We need to have confidence to be articulate about our works’ intentions and messages portrayed. Self-promotion, for artists who can’t afford outside management, is the other necessary half of the job and is time-consuming, but vital.
Temporarily it seems distracting, taking precious time away from creating the art in order to write gallery proposals and exhibition entries, but since sharing and selling are the main goals, who knows more about the heart of the art better than the artist? Practice meeting deadlines, and familiarity with managing all the details means we are in control of our destiny as much as possible, helps focus clarity of purpose.
It takes diligence and fortitude to wear all the hats. We need to take advantage of every open door whether it shuts in our face or not, and a few cash awards to supplement sales doesn’t hurt a bit!
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