I just redid this sketch tonight. It was nice as a drawing, but didn’t work as a base for a painting. I redrew King Demon II tonight, and I’m just about ready to start painting King Demons I-III!

Artists are constantly courted by juried shows asking for their dollars in return for a chance at being included in an exhibition. Is it a good idea to cough up $15, $25, $50 for a chance to show your work?

It’s hard to say. There are many considerations, and sometimes juried exhibitions seem like the only way to get your work in front of people. However, they can be a really easy way to toss away your money with little return. Many people say you should never pay to show your work. In general, I agree. Today I’m writing about my exceptions.

But before you start, make sure that any show that you consider isn’t just flatly out to steal your cash.

Once you’ve reached the conclusion that the show is legitimate, consider your needs. A juried show worth paying to enter should give you something.

1. Exposure. You can tell yourself, “I want to enter this juried competition because it’s in a big city the next state over, and those people haven’t seen my work, so it’s totally worth it!” Wrong. The truth is, not very many people will see this show. Any of the shows. That’s the nature of art. Unless it’s the one-in-a-million exhibition with an outrageous record for selling out all the work (and I don’t think that a show like that exists), your work will be getting shipped back to you.

However. There is the possibility of one kind of desirable exposure, and it requires just a smidge of research. Check out who is curating the show. Is it a curator who has assembled other shows you admire? Who runs a gallery with works like yours? This may be a good opportunity to get your work and CV on their desk.

2. CV Fodder. Are you trying to build your CV? Look for a show with some clout. Does it typically attract the work of high quality artists? Maybe it has a big-name curator? Is it very exclusive, but visible, like New American Paintings? It might be worth giving a go, so that you can add it to your CV’s list of recognitions and showings.

3. An inspiring theme. There is nothing wrong with doing a show because it sounds fun. Not every opportunity has to give you back something tangible. I like the shows put on by Art House. The Sketchbook Project. The Self-Portrait Project. They do fun things that are inexpensive to enter and can force you to work in a new way. Think of it as professional development.

Maybe you’ve always been dying to get into video installations or Chinese beadery or the exhibition features the theme, “The Economical Impact of Teeth”, which just sparks your brain into a million places. If it’s going to force you to work with a new medium that you’ve been wanting to try, or it fires you up, do it.





If a show fills up one of these buckets, it might be worth the $10-$25-$60 to enter. Good luck! In order to assure you’ve got the best chance of a good experience, don’t forget to consider these things, too:

Who facilitates the exhibition? Is it facilitated by a museum, an arts center, a non profit, a women’s club, Ducks Unlimited?

Once you determine the face behind the show, think about what sort of audience this will be marketed to. Arts patrons, nannies, duck hunters? Do you think they will be interested in your work?

Think very long and very hard about any past experiences you may have had with the show or its organizers. Are they reliable? Is the quality of work going to be high? Will you be excited that your work is hanging along side it? Personally, I never want my work to be the best OR the worst in the room. I will either look like I’m not aiming high enough or as though I don’t understand art at all.

Similarly, is this a local show or a national show? Some calls for entry specify that shows may only be entered by local artists, some are local only because they don’t have a significant reach past the edges of the state. A national show isn’t necessarily better than a local show, but it is important to understand who the audience will be.

What are the outcomes of the show? Are there awards? You spent your $25 to apply, your accepted piece had better be hanging on a wall in a well-trafficked gallery, printed in a magazine, up on a website. Read very carefully about where the accepted pieces well be shown.

What are the odds of being accepted? This is where being honest with yourself becomes crucial. Consider the quality of your work, along with the quality of your entry (how good are your photos/slides/artist statements)? Find out about the jury, if possible. Is your work in line with what they historically like? Find out how many people typically enter vs. how many are typically accepted. Have you applied to this show for five years and always been accepted/denied? I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to shoot for the stars, here. I’m just saying, spend your money wisely.

And finally, do they waive the entry fee, only to charge a publishing/supportâ/acceptance❠fee for winning artists? That isn’t a juried exhibition, folks. That’s advertising.

Did I miss anything? Are there other considerations to be had? I’d love to hear about how you judge shows.

This week I have a daunting self-imposed challenge: three paintings in 7 days. They’ll all fit into the body of work that I’m prepping for my show in May, and they’re all related to each other.

For these three I’m thinking about the feeling of abject fear that happens, even to grown folk, sometimes in the dark. What’s waiting for us?

Maybe this guy, and his other two friends I’m painting this week. Two drawings prepped, one to go tonight.

There are a ton of calls for entries out there on this great big interwebs. Before you even read this, consider whether a entry-fee-bearing juried show is right for you (this is a post for another day, but give it thought in the mean time). If you decide you want to pursue these events, take a look at the shows you’re considering. Most of them are legitimate: i.e., they do what they promise to do. Some of them are worth your time. Others are legit but worthless, and some are just plain fraudulent.

Here are some guidelines to help you tell a worthless and/or fraudulent show from the worthwhile ones:

The Studio 414 photography contest is a great example to start with. I don’t know if this is true, but I hear tell that it is not a juried contest at all. No one gets the awards, but Studio 414 sure does collect all those $25 fees.
Now, I don’t know for certain if that is true. What I do know is this: It’s not really what it purports to be: a collection of curated photos that will bring you monetary prizes and notoriety. Here are the red flags that you should look for whenever you think about entering a show.

The site lists no contact timeline. Winners will be announced when?
There is zero mention of the jury panel. Who juries this? Is it the Studio 414 staff? A rotating panel of arts professionals?
Here is a biggy: Where do the photos go when they’re done? Nowhere. They don’t get displayed or hung. Maybe briefly on the contest’s site, but not in a gallery, not on a page devoted to the winners of the competition.
Here is the biggest biggy: There is a new competition every few weeks. Even disregarding all the suspicious things going on, a contest with this many deadlines a year will bring you no prestige.
The prizes? They’re weird. Sure, a camera sounds awesome, but that’s not what juried competitions typically give out. $500 for second place? In your dreams.

Now, I have entered plenty of legitimate competitions that had one or two of these qualities. But if it smells weird, it’s probably out to take your money. Again, just to be repetitive, this is the information that you want to see:

A defined timeline. They’d better not be pushing deadlines back. When will they be contacting winners? When will materials be returned? When can you expect to see your work on display? If the rules don’t hint at any of those, steer clear.
Jury bios. You want to see something like, “The Fancypants Annual Exhibition will be juried by Cat Rocketship, who has a degree in Awesome from Totally Rad U, and had curated exhibits at an amazing museum for 37 years.” One of the reasons you should choose a show is to get your work in front of a respectable curator.
Where the work will be displayed. Some shows are online-only, and that’s fine. But chosen works had better be on a big old page labeled THESE ARE THE WINNERS, HERE IS THEIR CONTACT INFO, PLEASE BUY THIS WORK for a determined amount of time. Even better if the actual pieces themselves are displayed at some far away gallery/storefront/underground tunnel. Why? Because the entire point of paying money to enter shows is to have other people see your work. Again, consider carefully whether this is the right choice for you to begin with.
Prizes: I have never seen one real competition who gave a way a non-cash prize. They best not be listing any cameras unless the competition is put on by Kodak.

A bonus factoid is a little history on the competition. How many years has it been running? How did it get its start? Who won last year?

Without most of the boxes checked, a show is just a ploy to get your money. They may as well be selling you a real estate seminar on an infomercial for all the good it’s doing your art.

There are so many juried competitions out there, and it can be hard to wade through them all. Everyone from individuals to galleries to arts publications puts them on, and no one entity can be ruled a good or a bad bet. Use these guidelines as a start to make sure you aren’t throwing money out the window.

This post was originally on Please Obey v. 1. A lot of people seemed to find it useful, so it’s getting a second life here.

There are a lot of “How to Write an Artist Statement” articles out there, and your mileage on each artist statement should vary based on its application. So I wanted to share a few things I’ve picked up in years of writing, editing and reading statements.

When writing your artist statement, DO:

Adjust your statement to the needs of the situation. A Zapplication app only allows 100 characters (not words – letters), so hone your message to that size. A juried show at a gallery might want to hear a bit about how your work relates to the theme.
Use your statement to encourage the reader to take a second look at your work. It’s a fine line: provide an insight, but don’t overexplain or you’ll risk taking up too much space and making it look like your work can’t speak for itself.
Be specific. The most common error (heck, the most common trait of statements I’ve seen) is being too generic. Most of the statements I’ve read haven’t mentioned technique, the choice of subject matter or media.
Ensure that the reader can match your statement with your work. Were you to gather 20 works and the statements that go with them, cut them up and then try to match them together, you’d have a really hard time knowing which statement describes which body of work. This is where being specific can be helpful.

Now, be sure that you DON’T:

Use jargon. It’s acceptable and expected to speak in technical terms about your work. But don’t make statements with unnecessary big words when small ones will do.
Be cute. Funny or flippant statements don’t tell me anything about your work, and probably make me think that you don’t take the application very seriously or that you can’t use your words. You can get creative, but take the statement seriously as a tool.
Use filler words. None of these should be in your statement: “Unique”, “original”, “handmade/hand-built/hand-dyed”, “colorful”, “fun”, “whimsical”. Do not under any circumstances say that you “celebrate life”. Of course your work is unique, colorful, fun. Of course it’s handmade– I’m already assuming that you made it.
Write a term paper. Tell me about you and your work, not how your work fits into the grand scheme of life, art or philosophy.
Talk yourself up. Please don’t tell me that your work is skillful, cunning, smart or nationally-known. Be objective and informational. Pretend you are writing a newspaper article about your work.
Talk yourself down, either.
Read it just once. Write it, set it aside, come back to it and make changes. Then read it out loud to a friend. Ask them if they understood it. An artist statement should make as much sense to the non-artist as it does to artists.
Overthink it. This is really hard, but try it, anyway.

If you’re an artist, you probably have a half-written artist statement saved somewhere that you keep meaning to edit. I do. Take these tips, and see if they help you get it to a more finished state. Good luck!