The New Year is always a good time to reflect on past experiences, achievements, goals realised, or not, and this is no less true for artists than anyone else, which is why we asked Susie Hodge to come up with some suggestions (in the January issue of The Artist) for some useful artistic New Year resolutions, to help boost your creative resolve for the year ahead. Susie’s advice and ideas complement our pullout-and-keep annual planner (see our centre six-page gatefold supplement) listing the main open art competitions to enter in 2011. If you do nothing else new within your work over the coming months, a successful entry into an open competition is guaranteed to give you an incredible lift of confidence and most artists aspire to be recognised and judged amongst their peers eventually. The caveat though is to ensure you do your homework before entering, and establish the kind of work the competition is looking for; do some research on the judges and their interests, and on past years’ successful entrants to see if your work stands up to the overall style and standard on display in previous selected exhibitions. The internet can make your research much easier, and careful analysis and targeting of the most suitable competitions for your work will pay dividends, and save you from wasting money on entry fees to competitions in which your work might not obviously fit. The judges on open competitions are always on the lookout for new and emerging talent, and our own The Artist Patchings Art Competition is no different. We have discovered some really exciting new artists amongst our readers over the years, some of whom have subsequently contributed inspirational features to the magazine – it could be you in 2011. Our open competition, as well as many of the others listed in our planner, are strongly supportive of figurative work and the use of traditional media, and demonstrate that contrary to the focus on conceptual and ‘cutting-edge’ work within our art schools and amongst the art establishment and national press, there is still plenty of room and acknowledgement for craftsmanship and representational painting. These qualities are displayed with great impact by Stuart Luke Gatherer in his conversation pieces in which he aims to tell a story or hint at an idea, drawing the spectator in to the mystery of his visual narratives. Stuart reveals an erudite use of art history and shows the possibilities inherent in looking back and using ideas from the past to express a new vision of the present – a great lesson from which to learn as we move from the end of one year to the start of a new one. A very happy and fulfilling new year to all our readers