Joyce Owens: Artist On Art

An Artist's Pain: Being Judged and Juried

"Survivor Spirits" (Joyce Owens) sold out (except for one) at Concordia University...

Of course selling out is no guarantee that your work is good. It means that you touched a tender spot in people's hearts, and you, perhaps, should have asked for more money for the work!

"Familiarity breeds contempt", and other dilemmas artists wrestle with are many...submitting to exhibitions may be at the top of any top 10 list of things we hate to do, but know we must! I will tell you what I know that could save you from too much pain.

Here are a few of the dilemmas:

If your work is too familiar, it is not challenging.

If your work is too unfamiliar, then it does not fit the current discourse.

If there is no continuum, a dialogue with previous artists, then your work doesn't address art history. 

If your work is non-traditional then you may be  unskilled.

If your work is highly skilled then you may be too traditional.

If you work with new media, you may have no art skills.

If you avoid technology in your work may not be contemporary.

If your work fits too well, it is trendy.

If critiqued by a person who just doesn't like your style, then your work will not interest them.

Is your head spinning?

  "Retro-racing History" series (Joyce Owens)   AFROcentric feel to portraits, after Titian, Gainsborough...

How do you know your work is good? Each person who sees it will have a different opinion colored by the viewer's personal experience and knowledge. Should you be discouraged when you:

1.never get into juried shows

2. only sometimes get into juried shows

3. when you always get into juried shows (probably not!)

Many artists produce work that gets routinely rejected by the mainstream. It has famously happened, repeatedly, to artists who are now considered world class. Van Gogh is an easy example. And then there are the artists who are here today and gone tomorrow...those artists like Georges Roualt, who is still known, but not as well as he used to be, relegated frequently to the study of Biblical art...not a bad thing. Jacques Louis David was the cat's meow and got down-sized. Here are underrated artists in an Artnews article.

With art it is a damned if you do, and damned if you don't proposition, with the possibility that if you "do" today, in 20 years, you might be a "don't", and there are multiple variations on this theme.

Possible solutions to rejection, and bad, or no reviews:

1. develop a hard shell

2. take what you can from the comments

3. believe in yourself

4. believe in your work!

5. ask somebody else

6. keep working to improve

7. find like-minded artists and see what they do

8. look at good art! (tricky, but you can trust some galleries and museums...)

Google the juror before you submit to a show

If you are submitting to juried shows there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Jurors have preferences. If you know they make abstract work or are the curator of contemporary art at a museum and you're a realist portrait painter, you may not get chosen (not a rule, but a possibility).

2. So if you research the juror, you could be prepared if you are not accepted, and happily surprised if you are.

3. Jurors don't know everything. I have been on juries where I discovered one or more of the others were not familiar with some fairly common  techniques. 

4. Take chances! You never know when you might be chosen!

5. Make sure you submit good images of your work

6. Follow entry rules and deadlines

Good luck!

MFA is a bad word to some artists

There is a strong anti-grad school theme that I see emerging.

Perhaps it's always been there, but I have only rarely been around the people who express their true feelings about educated artists. Kerry James Marshall has made pronouncements about going to school in a Bad at Sports interview. He did go to art school and studied with artist Charles White, and I have never felt that he thought MFA artists did not work hard and encourage our students to become successful artists, another claim against trained artists I have read on Facebook.

Recent chats on Facebook expressly denigrate art schools, art teachers and artists who teach! According to the chats people with formal art education can only teach students to teach because that's all we know! We don't know how to make a living being an artist.

Damn!

It's hard enough to have to struggle with being an artist, figuring out what you can contribute that some other artist hasn't already done, developing skills and figuring out about getting exhibitions, etc. Not to mention the idea that much of the world seems to believe dead artists are better artists than living ones. But I never expected to be put down by artists who don't have degrees, specifically, MFA degrees. because I have one.

My first experience with this was minor, but memorable. 

In about 2005 Nicole Gallery wanted to do a series of Salons. I suggested they be called "A Month of Sundays" for obvious reasons, after she told me when they would be held. I asked several folks to participate for free, sharing their expertise with anyone attending. I spoke, too.

Among the participants I asked was a friend who is a professional framer and conservator, Melanie Janulis, a lawyer and art collector named Clarence Wilson (who has donated art to the Art Institute of Chicago), and Claudette Roper, a documentary filmmaker, writer and artist who teaches at Columbia College. 

During a discussion about what artists do, one of the artists attending said it was easy for me because I had gone to Yale!

Huh?

Other people, on rare occasions, indicate that they believe I have it easier because I have degrees and went to art school. In other posts I will try to explain the process from my perspective. Maybe that will help artists who care to hear from both sides of the issue.

The problem with not going to art school is that you don't know how it works! 

The result of lumping everybody into one thing is stereotyping.

Jim Alexander photo above:

After Yale graduation many years ago. My mother had been hit by a car and I wasn't even going, but my sister came to see me march and I was also chosen as class marshall and carried the class banner in the ceremony and enjoyed myself. Then I packed up and my brother moved back to Phila. to nurse my mother back to health. My parents were divorced and my sister and brother were married so I was the one "available" to help out. I was broke and as soon as she recovered I got a job. As a new graduate I would have had to win the lottery to NOT work.