Juried Shows
A few people mentioned juried shows in their comments on the last post and Robin asked if I’d explain more my thoughts on them.
I wrote about this a while back in my post How to Become a Successful Artist - the usecase.
Looking at the usecase I wrote for success one of the preconditions I wrote was:
Artist has a definition for their idea of success
In my mind this is very important. Years ago my definition of success was getting into certain juried shows. I didn’t know much about the art world and it was the thing to do, so that’s what I did. Now that I’ve spent time being an artist I realize that those juried shows don’t have much future in them so they are no longer in my definition for success.
While I started my art career with juried shows I certainly don’t think it is required. There are many avenues into the art world. These days I’m more interested in solo shows and gallery representation and I suspect most places I’d want to include my work don’t care very much about my resume so I’m not sure the juried shows really helped all that much. And now that I should be looking for gallery representation and solo shows I find the juried shows to be a distraction to those goals.
I don’t think juried shows are all bad. Providing a line on a resume, self esteem, baby steps into the artworld. These can be important things. But I think it’s easy to stuck at this level, just entering the shows over and over again and not taking the next step. It’s easy. It’s deceptively rewarding.
Some people are happy leaving their career at this level and that’s fine for them, but it’s not for me. There are a couple juried shows that I will probably continue to enter because they do provide clear benefits beyond a line on the resume. Quilt National is one of them, the book they publish every year is a valuable piece of quilt art history and I like having my work included in that history.
One thing I do feel is a problem with juried shows is that many artists (myself included several years back) put all of their work into juried shows. Everything they ever made that was any good has appeared in a juried show. So if they did get a solo show it would a show full work that is not new and fresh. The word from Edward Winkleman on this topic is overexposure. You can read his very interesting thoughts about juried shows in this old post of his: The Jury’s Still Out on Open Submission Exhibitions, don’t skip the comments.
Posted by Lisa in: Being an Artist
Tagged: artist success, edward winkleman, juried shows
Daniel Sroka said,
November 15, 2007 @ 12:40 pm
I’ve always been a little jaded on juried shows. A few years back, I had the honor to be a judge on a well-respected graphic design competition. What I learned was that the judges quickly get overwhelmed. There is so much to see, and so much of it is the same (the same level of quality, the same styles, etc), that you quickly get desensitized to it all. As a judge you have the best intentions and try to make good decisions, but after the 50th, 100th, 200th piece, they all start to blur together. To get through the process, you *have* to get rid of 99% of the work, so you do, in any way you can. It’s a process that produces a result, but not necessary one that always rewards quality.
San said,
November 15, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
Lisa, one of the artists we represent at our gallery decided to paint full-time about seven years ago. He got his work into several juried shows and then said, “This is costing me money and taking me out of the studio. I’ve had enough of it.” Now he focuses on making paintings for the marketplace. Your words reminded me of his experience. They are wise.
jafabrit said,
November 15, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
I haven’t entered juried shows for years, but when I was starting out it was good learning experience.
yes, overexposure is a problem and one I see several local artists making. They seem to recylce the same old paintings for every exhibit so that many don’t even bother going to their exhibits.
Diane Clancy said,
November 16, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
Hi Lisa,
This is a great post!! Thank you!
~ Diane Clancy
http://www.dianeclancy.com/blog
Nat said,
December 4, 2007 @ 11:16 am
Great post. It articulates much of what I have been recently reading and thinking. I’m trying to get back in the swing of setting up goals in art, and the juried shows give me some targets– but I have no illusions that they are leading much of anywhere. All the same, it would be some affirmation to get in there.