Entering Contests

[LMWilliams]

Hello!

I'm starting to pick my way through the myriad of art contests out there and was wondering how everyone else deals with this. Do you choose a contest and work towards it, creating specific work for it, or do you just work as you do normally and then choose a piece you wish to submit that fits the bill when the time comes along?

My reason for asking is that there are some contest deadlines looming and I still don't have anything I wish to submit (and i have work i like committed to other things and cant be submitted) but I don't want to spend the next few weeks forcing something together... Or should I? How do you approach them? How many do you enter? Do contests even feature in your year?

[ianuk]

Like you I have thought of entering competitions. Of course it depends on what style and the medium you paint in and for me, it also depends on painting something in the first place.

I think you need to plan at least a year before really because most of them are in the early part of the year or what seem to be the best competitions or at least the more prestigious.

I want to win - BP Portrait. National Portrait and not quite sure about the Turner prize. Pretty difficult as I tend to like art And a few others over the next years.

Go for it! But - plan!

[olive oyl]

I just periodically search through resources that have Call to Artists and enter to build my resume, mainly. Have been rejected more than accepted. Because I'm NOT paying for shipping costs of relatively large paintings, I look only in my region (New England). That sort of limits me but oh well. Next, I read through the prospectus carefully and do some research on the jurors or venue or organization. Some are more "prestigious" than others so I decide what's not worth bothering with. (Getting in touch with your own inner snob). If its something where I feel my work is appropriate and will "fit," and the deadline is "doable," I enter because otherwise, it's just a waste of time. In any case, I would only enter something where there's already a piece to submit because it takes too long to paint and I don't need/want the pressure of an upcoming deadline. The shows I enter usually have "prizes" but I suppose I don't think of them as "contests" where I might actually win some money or an award. I mean, that's icing on the cake, but I never seek/expect it. I look at all this "process" as just a way to get some (expensive and inconvenient) feedback - expensive because you usually have to pay for framing and entry fees, and inconvenient because you have to drive (or ship) the work back and forth on certain dates...drop off, visit the show, and pick up. I wonder sometimes, if its worth it.

But anyway, that's how *I* do it. And its probably wrong.

[ARCross]

I have entered two contests, and I created works with the contest in mind, but that could be because I had absolutely nothing lying around to enter. The second one, I had a request to do a certain piece, so I killed two birds with one stone, I drew the requested picture and then entered it in the contest (it won first!). The person just had to wait a little longer for their piece until the contest was done.

[RCharleston]

I usually keep it fairly local (live near a large city so I'm fortunate to have a good number of contests nearby in any given year) and I've always been wary of tailoring artwork to any specific exhibition although I suspect this is an "apples vs. oranges" type of thing (I've never been big on commissions or "themed" art shows.). Over time, one gets acquainted with the peculiarities of venues and jurors -- whether they're generally accepting or adversarial toward one's work/style/etc. I've got a "good list" of places & jurors that have received my artwork well and a .....well, I won't say the name of it...lol...list of shows and show judges who don't dig where I'm coming from, artistically, and I don't submit work to these venues/jurors. I enter one or two of the really hoity-toity prestige shows every now and again but try to view it like entering the lottery. Once the jurors go from "design instructor at Smalltown Junior College" to "curator of 18th century engravings at some well known museum", my odds go from "fair" to "infinitesimally small" so I don't often enter those. Budget constraints determine a lot of what goes toward entry fees in this current economic mess...........

[StephenC]

I haven't entered any competitions for a long time. With my doing a lot of solo exhibitions I always felt I needed every painting to go into my show for sale. I don't like being out of the competitions though. I will have to make the extra effort to set aside some paintings for juried shows. Has anyone here submitted images to the Ray-Mar and Bold Brush online competitions? If so what has been your experience with them?

[LMWilliams]

Thanks for these insights guys! I feel a LOT less under pressure now and I'm just making notes of all the contests that grab my attention and then if I have work ready that week that suits the requirements, then I can enter. The cost issue is not something I'd thought about either so thank you for reminding me.

Right now I'm just trying to ignore the deadlines for competitions tied into my graduation date. Yknow, the 'last chance' situation to 'use' my graduate status. Stupid me for making money, getting married and having kids before I became an artist. Do these graduate aimed competitions/shows have any real weight behind them anyway? I think I should be looking beyond all that now though tbh. Ho hum