You want your work to be seen. You want to get into galleries, for people to buy your work or for companies to hire you. Competitions and juried shows are a great step to develop your career and for your work to become seen and known. Entering shows, even if you don’t get in, will help you to develop a greater understanding of your own work and develop professional presentation skills and make connections.
Things to Consider
Enter the right competitions or shows for you
- Evaluate where you are, the kind of work you make and your goals for the future.
- Start local, but don’t be afraid to go regional or national.
- Focus on the medium or content of your work.
- There are shows that based around the medium (i.e. watercolor, sculpture, graphic design, logos, 3D modeling, animation…) and there are shows that are based on content (portrait, landscape, subject matter…)
- There are shows that based around the medium (i.e. watercolor, sculpture, graphic design, logos, 3D modeling, animation…) and there are shows that are based on content (portrait, landscape, subject matter…)
How to enter a show
- Carefully read the rules and guidelines.
- You don’t want to spend the time and money entering your abstract watercolors into a show focused on portraits, for instance.
- Enter your best work.
- Be honest and open to critique about what those best works are. Ask for critique. Reevaluate work periodically.
- If the competition allows for multiple pieces submitted, keep the work consistent.
- High quality, high resolution images.
- If the works are traditional media, make sure the photographs of the pieces show them to their best advantage. If they are digital media, strong composition and image resolution matters.
- Check and double check that you included everything asked for by that particular competition.
- Do they require an artist’s statement?
- Do they want dimensions and a breakdown of the media used to create the pieces (most will for traditional pieces)?
- For digitally created pieces, do they require a breakdown of software used to create the pieces?
- Take the time to do it right.
- Organize and track your entries
- Keep track of all the competitions and shows you have entered. This will help you track your successes as well as gauge the value of certain competitions over time. Also, this will make competitions easier to enter as you have information to reference.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions!
- If something is unclear in the process, check the FAQs and if that doesn’t answer your question(s), contact the organizers. It is better to do it right than to do it wrong because you were afraid to ask for clarification.