Ever entered your art into a juried show or publication? You waited weeks and weeks, only to get a very polite rejection letter, or maybe you got in! hooray!

I've been on both sides of the bench, I've submitted, and been accepted and rejected about equally. And in the last few years, I've had the dubious honor of being ON the panel that selects artists for whatever the show or publication may be.

I'd like to share with you a few insights into how to submit your work to a "juried" anything!

Here's a tip: At a reasonably advertised, modest showing space (that is not a huge huge event) the judges have anywhere from 60-200 artists' submissions to look at. Each submission includes the guideline number of images (say 3-10), which means that a the bare minimum, the panel has between 180-600 images to look at, and at the maximum 600-2000 images to look at. Slides are straightforward and they either work or don't work right away. CDs drag the process down as you have to swap CDs and some CDs are so poor you can't open them, etc. the panel can be sitting around for 5 hours or three 8 hour days looking at sumbissions. So don't piss them off! they don't have time for you to be all "special" and they don't really care how fancy your packaging is, they are only interested in your work.

That said, don'd wrap your CD or slides in a discarded paper bag. keep your presentation materials neat, clean, and legible! print labels and papers as much as possible. keep hand-writing ro a minimum and keep it all NEAT. you can put it in slick packaging, but be advised that often the actual judges won't see the embossed envelope because the assistants and organizers will have the artwork set up to view already, and they don't always tell the panel the names of the artists, they just give a number and the slide (so noone can cheat by association). You want to look professional, but you don't have to be so slick and shiny that you look like you paid an ad firm to make your presentation.

Get really good pictures of your work. if you are doing slides, i recommend having at least a semi-proffessional photographer or a really experienced friend help you out. shoot a lot of slides, because more than half of them sill not work out for you. before you send your slides, look at them in a projector! not just a little viewfinder thingy or a loop, go to your library and use their slide prijector and see what your slides look like. if they suck big time go shoot some new slides. it's not worth sending a crappy slide to a jury selection, you should keep your entry fee and get better slides.


If they give you guidelines for digital submissions, like "one CD with up to 12 works in JPEG format and one word document with details" do not send a fully interactive CD-Rom that plays music and takes you on a guided tour of your studio. Even if you worked really hard on it and you think it looks awesome. Because the judges don't care about your studio, they wanted to see your work, and all that extra crap you tossed in there is actually annoying them because they can't just open your files, they have to sit around waiting for your giant program to open from the CD and it's glitching on the computer they have to open it anyway, and "oh screw it, they're not in!" gets tossed around and whoops, your fancy dancy CD-rom tour just got you booted from a prospective show and the jury never even looked at your art. They got bored with your personal opening statement interview at the beginning and tossed it right into the rejection pile.


READ THE GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION VERY CAREFULLY, and FOLLOW THEM TO THE LETTER.

for example, if they say, "send 3-6 slides" then you send anywhere from 3-6 slides, but not 6-22, because any more than the first 6 they won't even look at. If they say "do not send additional promotional material" then don't throw in your articles, clippings, postcards etc, because they will likely be thrown right in the trash, and it makes you look desperate and it's a waste of postage. If they ask you to include promotional materials, that's fine, but choose carefully. they are not going to read a whole magazine article about you, so anything with big glossy pictures is a good idea but four pages of text is a waste of space. Remember, you are one of 60-200 other artists, and you are trying to wow the judges with your ART not your advertizing.


Make sure your submitted work has a unifying theme. But not so obvious that it's immediately boring. When we were jurying shows, some solo artists gave us art that looked like it was made by five different people, paintings, sculptures, bright colors, no colors,no unifying themes... we may have liked one or two works, but if it doesn't look like a cohesive show, you won't get a show. On the other hand, if all you paint are monochromatic angels, and we figure that out after just two slides, you won't get a show. unless they are supremely awesome monochromatic angels. because who wants a whole show of the same painting over and over again? we had a number of artists whose work was all SO similar that we were not surprised at all when we saw their next slide. it was like they painted the exact same painting over and over and moved the elements around a little. it was boring.

If you need some help with unifying themes that are not completely boring, here's a few tips:

-big sappy heart-shaped holes are not a theme, they are a gimmick. same with angels, squares, childish hand-prints, and sad-eyed children. Gimmicks make work boring, they do not make a "theme". if you have some image that repeats over and over, have a good reason for it, don't just stick somthing in because it's "catchy" or "trendy". be aware of the reasons you are including an image. there are entire walls of libraries about the symbolic meanings of different images. look them up, and investigate. "hearts" are powerful stuff, but they also can make your work look extra-extremely high-school.

-when you re-do an already done-a-million-times theme, like biblical scenes, or family portraits, or endless mountain landscapes, try to determine what makes them special. i mean, really, if you're just cranking out adam-and-eve again why are you bothering? are you putting your own insight in there at all? are you making it personal? Do not send your vacation photos. Do you how many actual professional photographers have taken pictures of their Italy vacation and thought they were brilliant stand-alone artworks? really. the "old Italian courtyard" picture is great for italian restaraunts and maybe your mom's living room, but it's not exactly original or groundbreaking, even if it's pretty. And watercolor flowers... well, they tend to make judges laugh a lot.... unless you are submitting watercolor flowers that rival Georgia OKeefe's, or you are subitting them to the "watercolor flowers juried show", skip it.

-"Abstraction" does not mean "total slack-off painting". we can tell when you just suck. If you are doing "abstract" do it well.

- ready-mades are Done. your ready-mades are boring. try making something original now. Really. you must be doing somethign AMAZING with ready mades to be considered these days.

-find out what other artists are doing in your medium of choice. some contemporary artists get so wrapped up in the "glory" of their chosen medium they don't realize that 200 other artists are doing almost identical work. or better work! for example, Quilting is a whole new artistic medium, that is often lumped into "fiber arts"... but quilters are making some amazing things whereas all the "fiber artists" i have seen are light-years behind the quilters. i wonder if the romance of being a "fiber artist" has overwhelmed these people who don't even know what their contemporaries are doing!

Other stuff:

Style. Your "Style" of painting or drawing or what-have-you can BE the unifying theme in your show. However, you should know:

Style should be a choice, not a default. If you cannot paint realistically, or you are not very good, the best realistic painting you make is not a "style" it is just not very good. You need to try something else, if all your ideas rely on realistic painting and you are not a realistic painter, you need to re-assess your situation. how else can you establish your ideas? how else can you communicate your artistic ability? digital collage? photomanipulation? abstraction? sculpture? come up with a cohesive style that does not look like an accident.

Be aware of the KIND of show or publication you are submitting your work to. If you have only nude photos, don't be surprised when you don't get into the
"Family Arts" magazine. If you are submitting to a gallery show, find out what the gallery has shown before. sometimes they obviously like a certain style or genre of artwork, and you can determine whether it's worth the $30 to apply! Don't be totally turned off if they have nothing like your work, you may still get into the show or gallery, but it might prepare you to keep looking if your personal themes don't mesh with your gallery or space.

BE AWARE of what kind of committment you are making by submitting your works to a show! read the fine print. you may be obliged to transport or ship your work in a very strict fashion, and it can be EXPENSIVE. if your work sells at the show, know what kind of percentage the gallery takes. Make sure you know the details BEFORE you submit. ask the sponsor or gallery, contact the people involved, and read all the details!

Don't give up just because you didn't get into a certain show. The art world is incredible fickle and competetive. if you don't get into the same show year after year, try different galleries, build up your portfolio, check the "call for entries" ads in arts magazines! check your local community arts organizations for showing opportunities. local groups can be the best resource for emerging artists because they are often supportive, FREE, and they can help open doors to bigger opportunities. Don't ever be ashamed of showing in restaraunts, cafe's and bookstores! people often BUY art from these places, people who would never get to a gallery show otherwise!

so good luck with your submissions and show huntings, gang. I hope i've helped a bit!

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