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Entering a contest take me back to the playground of my elementary years. I was not the first pick for one of the make-shift teams, nor the last, but the waiting to see if I would be accepted was excruciating. I am extremely competitive but I don’t let it show, or at least I try not to. We all want to feel accepted, but we place a lot of the worth of acceptance in the hands of others. Why do we do that?

I have entered contests from fairly early in my art career. By having a contest to enter, I would push my artistic skill as hard as I could. Knowing that I really didn’t have a chance of being included but entering anyway may have seemed foolish to some, but that didn’t matter to me. Being self-taught means you don’t have a teacher to encourage you, correct your errors and make you try harder. Those are the aspects that I brought to my students in my science classes, but I have nobody to do that for me. Just me, myself and I work on trying to figure out what works, doesn’t work, and what I should enter. Well now wait, I have to include my husband’s advice, which may or may not be asked for, but he gives it to me anyway. I must admit, he often has excellent advice because he as an artist’s eye. Having to pay for entry, at least for most contest and exhibitions, makes me want to paint to get my money’s worth. And yet, the wait to see if my work will be accepted, always is so tough.

Sometimes I am surprised to see which of my paintings are accepted into exhibitions. It can be discouraging when a painting that took months to make is passed over, only to have a painting that took a couple days to complete win the selection, but I am glad just to have something accepted. Entering anything, shows or contests, is still very nerve wracking for me.

I missed the deadline of an exhibition recently, because I was following the date on an email from the group. They must have sent a correction notice, but the print-out that I had gave me a date that was after what the group’s computer website stated. When I logged into their site, I was shocked to see that I had missed the deadline. How disappointing to have to wait another year to enter, especially since I had painted some pieces just for that show. Now I will be more careful to check the dates on the sites and not rely on emails that are sent to me.

Procrastination is something that I have always had to fight. The reason I procrastinate for entering exhibitions and contests, however, is due to the hope that I will keep improving with every painting that I create, so the later I enter, the better the piece. A recent email stated that I needed to re-enter my pieces since the group now had a different process for selection. I had already entered with the previous method, but now had to reformat all of the images to fit the new criteria. Due to having the chance to re-enter, I was able to include some newer, and I hope stronger, pieces for selection. But now come the long wait to see if my work is good enough to be included.

Rejections stings, but I use that to motivate me to push myself harder. I wasn’t always able to do that, but one must if they are to improve. Analyzing one’s own artwork is difficult. Art is subjective, which makes it even harder to scrutinize, especially when a painting does not make the cut. Did my painting not fit the look of the show? Was the style not of their liking? Did my work seem to lack originality? Were my colors too intense for the judge’s liking? Was my artwork missing key components? Were there too many pieces created in the medium or style that I chose so that the competition was too great for mine to shine? It can be so frustrating to not know why the judges did not select a piece, but then, should it really matter to me?

This year I have been very fortunate to have had several pieces selected for various shows, contests and exhibitions. That ups the ante and now I have to try and figure out what I must have done right. How or what was it about my painting that made it stand out? Did the judge like the brushwork of an impressionistic piece? Did the trompe l’oeil stand out because it looked like a collage, not a painting, and at first glance, I fooled the judges? Had I captured the mood of a setting or look of animal that was unique? Did the use of sunlight and shadows capture the judge’s attention or make them remember fondly a place in time?

Not all artist’s feel it is necessary to enter shows. Others enter countless shows and travel to all of the ones that they get into. Will having my work accepted into a show give the painting a better chance of selling? Probably not. Will recognition of my work make for more marketability? Maybe or maybe not. Since I paint in a variety of styles, I have great difficulty deciding what pieces to enter. I had one patron of an international show that I have been juried into several times tell me that he always can’t wait to see the style and medium of my accepted pieces.

The range of emotions about entering artwork must be as varied as the artists themselves. Yesterday, I had my webpage featured in FASO’s Informed Collector newsletter. Since I had no idea that my artwork was being considered, I was so shocked to see my name listed as the featured artist when I received my email. This was something that I didn’t “enter”, so to have this sort of acceptance is very special to me. In addition, I have read some very kind words about my work and my blogging. I will remember this feeling the next time I get a rejection notice…….. somebody out there likes my work.