RED ALERT

Red Alert! On Star Trek that was the warning for deep trouble, really deep trouble. You see Captain James T. Kirk usually blundered into some devilish trap set by the Klingons, Romulans, Rastafarians or the Scientologists after ignoring all of the warnings from Spock and after the ship took a devastating hit, he’d scream, “Get us out of here, Sulu!”

Artists are a great deal like Captain Kirk, they wait for the enemy to fire the first shot before they spring into action. Take juried shows for example, an artist likes to know about the show eight weeks in advance so that they can create a new work, send it out for framing, have a display photograph taken and pack it up for shipping, just in case they get juried in.

Now I am all for creativity, attention to detail and careful packing, but eight weeks? Hannibal got all those elephants over the Alps in less time. Isn’t that a lot like Kirk waiting to get shot before declaring a Red Alert?

Part of developing your craft is working all of the time. It takes a lot of practice to get the skills necessary to make it past a jury and to stay sharp you have to work, work, work. But what becomes of all of that work. Does it get stored in a closet, hung on the walls or painted over? Some artists, like Monte Rogers are so skilled that they can market their sketches and make good use of all of that honing, but for most of us, the work just lurks about desperately waiting for a chance to be displayed.

True, you could buy a very large warehouse with a fourteen hundred square foot house attached and have all of the storage space you need, except in this market they are hard to find.

So what about treating your work like a living resume? When you look for a job you send out hundreds of resumes, right? Why not think of shows as a prospective employer? You want to get the nice prize, but if the work sells, isn’t that better? And for the work to sell you have to look at it in a whole new light. Instead of rushing to create a new work everytime a show comes up why not send out one of your veterans? It is your best work? Then why leave it languishing when it could be out there working its little heart out.

And don’t discard the prospectus just because it says flowers only when you have been painting fish for the last six years. Look at your work and see where it could fit. After all, there are some artists who are so good if you absolutely had to compete with them in their stadium, it would be best to take a loss and study up for the next game. If you look at your work again and see where it fits and not where it doesn’t you may have a piece which is just right for that flowers only show. And best of all it is done and framed and all you have to do is pack it up.

So the next time you are checking the listings at Juried Art Exhibitions.com and the closing date is three days away, don’t move on in disgust, read the prospectus and see if one of your vets can’t serve, they’re wanting to do it, they’re waiting to do it, they’re willing to do it, so give them a chance.

And you can save the red alerts for Kirk…