The Time is Now

Have you sent in your entry for Lighthouses 2.0?

The deadline is January 31 and that is just over a week away. And unlike most of the shows, that’s not the postmark deadline that is the final deadline. Yep it is your final answer.

So what’s the hold up? You don’t know anything about Whispering Gallery, the jury system never works out for local artists, and the people doing the show aren’t ONE OF US.

What a whiney, elitist, chicken-snot opinion. (I know but it is cold season and there people who foolishly let their children, husbands and other innocents read this blog)

Art is supposed to be about change, risk, pushing the edge of the envelope. How can you do that if the only place you show your art is in an exhibit of the same stuff they showed last time?

Yes, I know you have to earn a living and that means you have to sell what you create and there is that pesky depression…okay, okay, it’s a recession for Congress, but out here on the South Coast it’s a depression. Just walk in any of the galleries and ask. That is if you can find one open.

But selling your work doesn’t mean doing only art which can be sold at a spring festival. Sure there are a lot of festivals around here and anyone who ignores them is missing out but art should have something to say beyond, “Buy me.”

If you only do what you’ve always done are you still taking the risks which art demands? Or have you found that special niche and decided to grind out cookie-cutter pieces till the market dries up?

New art related businesses don’t spring up like Venus from the sea. Someone put blood toil, tears and sweat into them and they deserve a look before you go back to the places you’ve always gone.

And while you’re looking, the curator of the show is S.L. Donaldson, our own, buffalo painting divine Miss D and she is definitely ONE OF OUR OWN. So before you turn up your nose you’d better cross that feeble excuse off the list.

And when it comes to juries, God help us all. The jury says more about their own taste in art than it does about the quality of the entries, but then that’s what they get paid the big bucks for? And each time a jury makes its selection we see a slightly different view of what the art world is made of. This is all part of the risk or do you just want to paint what will win? (Yes, I know winning is very nice.)

Entering a juried show is a leap of faith, in yourself, in your work and in the jury. If you want a sure thing, have you considered plumbing?