Slick Deal

I came across this about a year ago, but just re-discovered it. Someone named Jesse Ross set up a site called workingartist.com. Sez its purpose is to to provide a "meager quarterly offering intended to dispurse [sic] small but vitalizing bursts of funding to those who find our sum would solve a surprising many problems hindering their ongoing art making process."

EThe concept, if not the language, sounds straight-forward. There's more, however: "As a stipulation for eligibility to receive the Working Art Grant of $500.00, we ask that each prospective recipient be willing to exchange one of their available works of our mutual agreement in return for the award." Which means that Ross gets an original work of art for $500, an original work which he -- or other unnamed jurors -- has decided is the best of the best. Not a bad deal for him in itself--

But an artist must apply for the grant. It costs $20. So Ross is purchasing the work with other people's money. He's getting it free, in other words. Anything collected over the $500, we assume goes to maintain the site and is not returned to the unsuccessful applicants. There is an out of pocket cost of $3-10 a month for Web hosting. Also, he also has to pay someone, presumably himself, to post the images of the winners and make various text updates. Depending on one's hourly rate, this could cost another $20-100 every three months.

This is not necessarily a scam. But one always wants to know: who is choosing the artists that get the award, what are the criteria, what happens to income in excess of the award? Things like that.

In looking for answers, I found that the individual running this owns 60 other domains and that, with one possible exception, everyone listed as having received an award is someone who had an association with him prior to his launching this site. Just friends helping friends, I guess.

Rejected

Q: I was recently disappointed by a rejection from a juried show. I was sure I had a good chance after seeing what others had brought in. It will be interesting to see what they hang.

A: Sorry to hear about your rejection. The odds are that you will be rejected more often than you will be accepted, no matter how good your work is. Some of this is simply luck. For instance, there may be more than 1000 entries. Sometimes there are many more. If you have submitted, say, a landscape, but there are 100 other landscapes before the jurors get to yours, they may be past the point where they simply don't want to accept any more landscapes. Or they may be visually exhausted by the time they get to yours. Looking at 400 images and making a decision about each one is hard work. Looking at four times that many leaves your eyes and brain spinning.

But that's just the way it goes. Not every top effort brings success. The best big league baseball player rarely gets on base more than four times out of ten. He scores a run something like less than 1 out of 15. When you count balls that he swings at and misses, that ratio probably drops to 1 out of 30.

Another reason artists are rejected when their work is up to par is that they fail to follow directions adequately.( I'm not saying that was true in your case, but it is something to be especially aware of.) Thus, their work never even gets seen by the jury. It is disqualified and the entry fee is kept. From the artist's point of view, this is unfair. But the organization simply doesn't have the time to deal with making the corrections or figuring out what the artist meant to do. And they can't take the chance of changing something, because the change might negatively affect the artist's entry and they would, rightly, be held responsible for it. So you always have to double check -- maybe even triple check -- the prospectus and what you are entering.

In general, entering juried shows should be approached as a learning experience, not a one-time stab. What kinds of shows do you do best with? What kinds of jurors (teachers, active artists, curators, painters, photographers, etc.). What particular jurors? Keep records and review them often.

And, good luck, always.

Vanity Gallery ICO Holds Another "Contest"

Ico Gallery, a business in NYC, runs various, "contests." Their latest, Emerging Artist Competition (Star Search), is run as part of one of their sites, ArtiFacTorYNYC. Entry is free. Winners "will be given the opportunity to be included in a collective exhibition at Ico Gallery's ground floor Chelsea gallery." One winner will be "given the opportunity to exhibit at Ico Galley during our 2010-2011 calendar." Implies a solo show, but could be anything. In any case, it is the opportunity to pay for it that you win, not the thing itself.

And what does "opportunity to be included" mean? Why, it means, that for a substantial fee -- $200-400, according to one artist who contacted us -- you will have your work shown along wlth others who either have plenty of money to burn or have no idea how the real art world works. So entry is free but acceptance is very expensive.

Ico Gallery twice tried to have AOM list their contest for free by falsely claiming on our submission form that they are a non-profit organization -- instead of paying $6/line for a classified ad. When I wrote to ask if accepted artists were charged to show their work, I got only the curt reply, "All of the information can be found on the contest rules page."

Indeed it can. Almost. But it is written in a way intended to mislead the inexperienced and recognition-needy. "Given the opportunity to be included" is not the same as included. I wonder if they are also offering the "opportunity to include the Brooklyn Bridge as one of your most prized possessions."

One good way to recognize a vanity gallery is to look at the work shown. Almost without exception, the work is not professional quality. Also, there are usually fairly prominent pictures of the individual artists. They tend to be of a certain type, although I cannot articulate it. I'm waiting for someone to do a series of portraits of people who routinely show their work in vanity galleries. To complete the concept, should the results be shown in a vanity gallery?

PDF to DOC

AOM is published as a PDF because: 1) that format allows the content to appear the same on any system; 2) not every system has all the software to read other formats but Adobe Reader is free and simple to get; 3) the filesize is much smaller than it would be in, say Word; and, last but not least 4) Adobe Reader has an excellent and sophisticated search system. More about all this at http://www.artopportunitiesmonthly.com/PDF_instructions.

Nevertheless, some reader prefer AOM as a Word file, probably because they are more familiar with that program. An excellent freeware program to convert the .PDF to a .DOC is Free PDF to Word Doc Converter (http://www.hellopdf.com/download.php).

Overproduced Artist Sites

During the past few years, I have looked at thousands of artists' sites. The least successful in my opinion are those that are the least straightforward. Such sites are often built with Flash and require the viewer to spend time waiting for things to load. While those are loading, the viewer gets to look at a progress bar which shows the percentage already loaded. Although the amount of time for each message is not really that long, the cumulative effect is that the viewer is more likely to be left with an impression of that progress bar than with the work itself. It's as though you were telling a story and before each line said:"OK, here is the next sentence."

This is not the reason the sites are problematic, it's merely one of the symptoms. Artists understandably want to sell their work, but if the site looks more like an on-line store, with constant references to shopping carts or an exercise to show off a website designer's bag of tricks, it is likely to annoy serious viewers and drive them away in less time than it takes a progress bar to finish.

Responding to Open Deadline Calls

Just got an email from an artist who was upset because a gallery we had listed as having an open deadline call seems to have closed its doors so that her package of images, etc. was returned by the PO as undeliverable. She wasn't happy about that, as who would be.

But it is always risky to send a package to any open-deadline call without contacting them first to see if they are still accepting entries and whether they have any recent special instructions. Not only can doing so save you time and trouble, it makes you appear more professional even if they are not currently accepting work.

Christiania Foundation Wants All Rights w/o Compensating Artists

Reader Doug Schwab points out that The Christiania Arts Foundation's “New Classic Nude” Billboard Contest requires anyone who submits work to the contest to give up all rights to that work. The rules state:

I irrevocably grant to Christiania, a non-exclusive license to use and otherwise exploit, as further specified below, my concepts, ideas, communications and/or materials (collectively, “Submission”) for the benefit of Christiania and its affiliates, including, without limitation, Christiania Classic Nude Billboard Contest and other Christiania branded programs and programming services (each, a “Program” and, collectively, the “Programs”), upon the following express understandings and conditions.

AOM had this contest listed as "No entry fee," but that's not quite right. While you don't have to part with cash, giving away your rights to a work could end up costing you plenty. And it's bad practice in any case. Why give a stranger a blank check?