eHow

I started making my way through eHow today and the articles related to exhibit proposals. I have skimmed through some good basic advice for beginning artists, but only one article really stood out for me. JesiKha's How to Submit Work to an Art Gallery was basic like the others, but she mentioned some tips that surprised me, like: get a professional photographer to shoot slides. I haven't taken slides since 2000. In fact, I'm looking at making the investment of a slide converter, to scan and digitize all our slides (and we have hundreds). I haven't done it yet because I imagine the time involved. JesiKha was contributing to eHow for about two months in the beginning of 2008 and hasn't logged on since, otherwise I would ask her if she continues with that advice. That aside, she was a former Gallery Director and she wasn't afraid to tell the truth. She says "Reputable contemporary art galleries receive scores of unsolicited submissions and more of them languish unopened in drawers or, even worse, end up in the trash. Only a fraction of unsolicited submissions will result in gallery representation." Note the keyword for me: unsolicited. Although she acknowledges this, she never suggests getting deeper into the art scene and meeting people. Every exhibit I had in St. Louis and as far as I know, most of Gordon's happened because of a referral by another artist, another gallery or because we personally knew somebody at the gallery. That's also the reason why I didn't get some shows. We can't pretend there isn't a political atmosphere in the art community.

JesKha does have me a little worried though. The thought of taking slides..... Well, if it's what they want, it's okay. She did have a great recommendation that I'm going to use. She advises to call the gallery and ask the person who answers the phone about the submission guidelines (not bothering the director), because they usually know. I love this and I can't wait to talk to the fantastic lady I met at AnArte Gallery on Wednesday.

We have a lot of work to do tomorrow. There is a large sculpture of a horse in our garage now and about half a dozen drawings we have to un-frame. Two very large paintings (4X7 feet) have to be photographed as well. I hope the weather is good and dogs are behaved.

Here is a detail shot of one of the large paintings:

Gordon has worked with bees before, in Missouri. He creates each piece of the wooden armature and then applies the transparent paper. These bees are about 12 inches wide. It's a very cool process to watch. The fabric behind it isn't canvas, but burlap, a material we both love in the final product but find so hard to work with in the first few stages. I can't wait to get some good images of this piece and share them....