Winning or Losing? Find It Out Yourselves

Ambitious artists spend money to enter competitions and in the past, receiving a notification of the result if their entries were accepted or not was the norm. 

Now that has begun to change.  A very depressing trending is spreading in the art world - many competition organizers now don't bother to inform artists if their submissions have been accepted or rejected.  Instead, those artists were advised to go back online after a certain date and find out themselves of the results.  Even the accepted entries!  That's not only discourteous, it also demonstrated the care and effort, or lack of it, those organizers would put into the show.  Therefore, this practice argues against artists' participation in such events, short of a compiling reason.  It might make artists suspect that those galleries would not take good care of their  best works, or would not spend time and money to promote the events.  Instead, they might simple use entry fees to these competitions as there cash boxes.  Even if there are more innocent reading into is, it still demonstrates their lacking of business common sense.

There are numerous competitions and each one of them cost ranging from $25-$75, averages probably around $35.  It can be quite a burden to the aspiring artists, considering many of them have to make arrangement to have the artwork shipped to and from the galleries.  Artists don't make money nowadays and who can blamed them for being picky on the galleries.

On another front, artists are overwhelmed is the online services - either simply posting their artworks, or services allow them to sell prints and/or originals, eve fancier kind online galleries in 3D virtual format.

These services can be free or with a fee.  It is human instinct to go with the cheapest services; however, it might not be the best services one needs.

Online galleries are numerous and often those galleries hosts numerous artists with their numerous artworks.  To stand out from those fierce competitions are really difficult.  From viewer point of view, it is good to have many selections; however, if the choices are too many, they are overwhelmed and frustrated.  Therefore, the shortcomings or fallacies of the free services.  Services for a fee would have deterred some less committed artists from using their hosting services, therefore, screened out some competitions.  The service hosts can rely on the fee to promote their services to buyers much more readily than free one, generally speaking, and that definitely argue in their favor.

Remember, often, what you get is what you paid for.


Exhibbit: 3D Virtual Gallery for a fee.  Artists will be able to sell online soon.