The Advantages Of Entering An Art Competition Or Show

Tips of the Trade

(borrowed with permission)

(by Nancy DeCamillis, Executive Editor Sculptural Pursuit magazine)

Participating in a competition or show is an opportunity to grow professionally as an artist. The steps you take to complete your application may prepare you for showing and selling your work. Meeting the deadlines to enter competitions provides you the necessary impetus to complete works and have professional-quality photographs taken. Entering and winning an art competition can do great things for your confidence and for your résumé. Even if you don’t win, you should congratulate yourself for putting forth the effort to take your work out of the studio. As Marie Gibbons, a clay sculptor featured in the Summer 2003 issue of Sculptural Pursuit, said, "You develop it (your work) in your mind, create it, and then you must get it out there for the public to take part. If you just create and keep it to yourself, I think it stifles your growth and understanding of your own work."
Some key things to remember when entering competitions include:
1. There are many entries vying for the awards or selections. Follow ALL of the competition guidelines and rules to increase your chance of winning. Send only what is requested in the competition rules. A small technical error, such as leaving your name or red dot off a slide, not signing entry/release forms, or not submitting the proper fees or SASE, can mean automatic rejection.
2. Submit professional images in the specified medium, generally slides. The jurors evaluate your work based on your images. It cannot be stressed enough; no matter how fabulous your work is, it is only as good as it looks in the slides.
3. Photograph your artwork on a clean neutral background with appropriate lighting to show details and lines of the work. Don’t allow lighting to create shadows that distract from the work.
4. Send up-to-date dust free slides in clean plastic sleeves, with information printed on the slides in ink; don’t use stick-on labels; they jam up the projector or fall off and the slides cannot be identified.
5. Meet the deadline dates.
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When deciding to enter a competition or show, check out the credentials of the organizers. If you don’t understand the rules and guidelines, ask questions. You can ask for information on the jurors. The show organizers will give guidelines for the jurors to follow; judging is a product of these objective guidelines and the subjective opinions of the jurors, who are often experts in the field. The artists’ names are not shown to the jurors in order to encourage objectivity. Due to the subjective nature of judging a competition, remember that just because one juror doesn’t like a particular work, another one may.
The Role of an Art Competition Juror
Art competitions or shows fall into two categories, open or juried. An open art event allows any artist who submits the opportunity to participate. There may be little control over the quality of the work. A juried show allows the show promoters to set professional standards for the artist to follow and assures that there will be quality works exhibited.
The selected jury may be one person or a panel of two or more. They usually are selected because their qualifications are specific to the event and the art they are to judge. During the jury process, they work independently from the committee members or promoters of the event. It is also important they have sufficient time to make their decisions based on criteria provided by the staff.
Guidelines for the jurors may include the following questions: Do you like the work and why? Does the work involve you as the viewer? How is the work organized? Are the basic elements contained in the work: shape/form, texture, line, color, etc.? Are these elements arranged with balance, proportion, variety, rhythm, and emphasis? Do these come together as a whole? Is there unity? What is the feeling expressed: playful, menacing, peaceful, tense, etc.?
Judging Criteria for Scoring
ORIGINALITY: Work must be an original composition and design, not a copy.
CONTENT: Should have an original and strong concept or feeling at its core.
SKILL/TECHNIQUE: Look for technical competence for the particular medium. Look for inventive application of techniques, and be sensitive to works that demonstrate the artist’s willingness to take risks and to experiment with materials, form, and content.
EXPRESSION: Look for the emergence of personal vision or style, and the expression of ideas, thoughts, or concepts.
SCORING: Use the scale of 1 to 5, with 5 the highest and 3 excluded so the results don’t deadlock around the midpoint.
Tips For The Jurors
Act in a fair-minded conscientious manner weighing decisions with thoughtfulness, fairness, knowledge, consistency, and integrity. Remember to keep in mind that each entry is the pride and joy of the person who created it. Vote for the works that show originality, quality, technical proficiency, and integrity even if the work doesn’t appeal to your design preferences.
Tips From Jurors To The Artists
During the initial round of jurying slides for a show or competition, there are about thirty seconds between the projection of each slide or set. Therefore, it is extremely important that slides be of the clearest quality so the jurors can focus their attention on the work. Mediocre work may win because excellent slides focused on the work, had no distractions, and had high contrast between the work and the background.
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When you submit a series of slides, it is important that the slides show a consistent body of work. If there is a work of a different subject or materials, submit the slides numbered in a sequence to place the odd slide at either end. In other words, organize the group of slides as a composition that shows your strongest or best slide as a center of interest. Perhaps have the lines, shadows, or colors of a painting or sculpture in one slide draw the eye to the next slide. Remember, anything in the slide that creates a distraction from the work can keep the work from being selected. Since most of us are too familiar with our own work, it is a good idea to ask a friend you trust to view the slides with you. They can sometimes spot a detail you may miss. Choose the photographs that grab attention— that have the WOW quality. You want to enter that quality of slide so your work has a chance to be selected. Study fine art and sculpture magazines for examples of well-photographed work.