The perils of the opens
Tomorrow, I will go to pick up my reject from The Jerwood Drawing Prize. The odds against getting accepted were pretty high, so it wasn’t too much of a blow, but I was completely taken aback when finding out that the work went entirely without packing for the whole journey.
I did read that packing will be removed, but in my naivety, I thought that meant that it would be removed when it actually reached its judging destination – not before! It was only yesterday, when an employee from one of the collection points was complaining about the amount of packing they had to dispose of, that the penny dropped. She had seen my work, but wouldn’t respond when I asked its condition.
I’d made a paper house with a drawing on it. No frame – its only protection was the box I’d made especially for it.
With ten collection centres and hundreds of artworks being delivered to and from each, what chance of survival would a paper house have?
So that was it. I’d made a vow not to enter anything that you pay for and I broke it. Serves me right.
It was quiet in work today, so I scrolled through all of the many pages of exhibiting ops in a-n. I crossed off all of the ones with a charge. I then dismissed the ones that would cost too much to travel to, to deliver work. I was then left with three. The deadlines were fast approaching on two of them, the other had a week or two left. With having little time, and even less enthusiasm after my recent reject, I sent the same proposal and images to both.
Open exhibitions just suck. The big ones cost too much, and even the smaller ones have started doubling their entry fees. I know of two opens this year that cost a lot more than they charged last year. Because less people entered, they accepted virtually everything.
I’m not sure I would want to be in an exhibition with such low standards. I’m better off with what I’ve been doing I think.
