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Some thoughts about competitions.
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Message
Posted
In commenting on one of my pics, Linda asked if I was entering the 'cartoon competition.' I pay little attention to competitions. For me, the term 'art competition' is almost an oxymoron. What you get is what half a dozen people thought the best that day. A dozen different groups of judges might well come up with entirely different results. In fact, there's probably some degree of dissent within any group of judges. As we all know, art appreciation is a very subjective thing...and so it should be. So how can any painting be declared the best?
Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe they're declared the 'winners', not the 'best'. Two very different things.
At the Olympics, people train for years to be the fastest (or whatever), that's a very good competition...you can definitely decide who got the best time in the Olympic final. Art is different altogether.
I do like my pictures to be seen. According to POLs stats, in the few years since I joined POL 227905 people have viewed my pictures. That's about 227800 more than would have before I joined POL.
That's fine for me. For my personal preferences, POL offers the best for me. (Thank you POL.) My stuff gets looked at, and people are kind enough to make comments. That's all I want at my age, so you can keep your competitions.
So Linda, I won't be entering the competition. It contradicts everything that I believe about art.
I don't expect many will agree with this. Just one opinion. If anybody choses to reply to this, please remember...it's not a competition to come up with the best argument about competitions...because there isn't one.
Posted
Like you Lewis, I view competitions as opinions of different people. I often wonder how they reach the conclusion they do. I also think luck has a part to play….you perhaps painted the right painting at the right time, in the right genre and it caught someone’s eye enough to class it as a winner.
I do enter competitions, but so far my work has not been considered. However, it doesn’t put me off entering. Perhaps it’s the style I paint in…..abstracts are like Marmite, you either like them or you don’t.
I will just add that putting my paintings here on the gallery has actually spurred me on to continue painting in the abstract style, and I appreciate the comments I’ve had.
I’ve added my opinion, Lewis. Let’s see if anyone else joins in!
Edited
by Ellen Mooney
Posted
Thank you Ellen. This was one of those thoughts I had in the wee small hours of the morning, not always the best time for things like this. At one time I'd have deleted it, but you can't do that now.
Way back I did enter competitions. I served at the Admiralty for three years back in the 1960s, an art-mad friend persuaded me to enter the RA comp and I did for each for those three years. I got nowhere, but always went to the show and was completely dumbstruck by many of the entries that were successful. That said, there were many exhibited that I thought wonderful. I've entered others too, without success, but made a point of going to see the resulting exhibition...always with very mixed feelings.
For many, competitions provide a spur to produce work, and that's good I suppose. But not for me.
Posted
I like to enter them, It's not because I think I am special and I'm going to win, it's because of the buzz of it. The excitement of entering. Once I've entered, I forget about it. I think, what have you got to loose, I think, well you never know if you don't give it a go. Some are free and some charge a small fee to enter, well I don't smoke or drink, I treat my grandchildren and for me, I enter a couple of competitions, no one was more surprised than me when I did hear from one. I do totally understand that competitions are not for everyone, it is a personal choice and it is not a common occurrence to hear back, I think a lot of it is down to luck if you are picked. You have to go in with a realistic outlook when you are entering competitions.
Edited
by Denise Cat
Posted
I’ve had my fair share of success with art competitions over the years, perhaps I’ve just been lucky!
I enjoy entering… I enjoy winning even more! Yes, it’s a lottery to some extent, but at least I know and accept that.
I tend to make an extra effort for competitions, but I accept that they aren’t for everyone!
This website is great for posting work and hopefully getting positive comments from members, it’s friendly and well managed by Dawn ~ competitions are an added bonus!
Posted
I can't disagree with anything you've said Lewis to be honest. I do enter the Patching's or TALP competition and that is a direct result of showing my work on POL, as prior to me joining this site I would never have had the confidence to do so. And yes the prospect of being considered a 'winner' has so many variables that influence the choices made by the judging panel it has to be something of a lottery.
If you're a musician you want to be heard and as artists we want to be seen so thank heavens for POL for giving us a platform to exhibit our work to like minded people and to be part of such a supportive community.
Posted
I also enjoy entering competitions, not with any expectation of winning, but just for the fun of taking part, although winning is a bonus and a great confidence booster. It was being selected as a winner of one of the challenges advertised in The Artist six years ago that first brought PaintersOnline to my attention, so that was an added bonus! I try to enter most of the POL competitions (including TALP) as well as others such as Sketch for Survival and A Letter in Mind where the paintings entered (donated) are sold in aid of very worthwhile fund-raising activities, and have had some success this year so far. I avoid entering the large London-based open exhibitions/competitions – the entry fees are usually very high, with little chance of being selected (and they don’t seem to like my style of work anyway!)
Lewis, I was also going to suggest that you enter The Artist’s 90th Anniversary Challenge cartoon competition, but understand your reasons for not wanting to.
Edited
by Jenny Harris
Posted
The key factor for me in showing art is some form of feedback. We get that here on POL, a tremendous benefit that they've set things up to allow that to happen. Just great.
My admittedly limited, and ancient, experience of entering competitions is that it's a bit of a non-event (unless you get selected, of course). All those years ago at the Royal Academy you had to take your paintings to them (my mate painted 6' x 4' oils, I spent time helping him lug his, with my offering rolled up in my back pocket)...something of a buzz, seeing other artists, glimpses of their work, and a general feeling of optimistic hope. For most a polite 'on this occasion you've not been selected' letter, and then the return visit to collect your work...this time with far less buzz. These days you don't lug paintings around unless you've been selected for exhibition. That aught to be an incentive.
Not for me I'm afraid. I do accept that it's impossible for organisers to offer feedback on every submission. That's not going to happen.
So what happens is you pay your money, submit a jpeg of your work, wait...wait some more...maybe hear nothing at all until you start reading about the winners and gather you aren't one of them. I'm not sure how that's a fun experience, in fact the whole thing has only the tiniest grasp on the word 'experience.'
There is luck involved, Alan. Not so much regarding the quality of your work, the luck is having someone to recognise it. I'm slightly surprised you have only a limited entry to competitions, Russell. You both produce work that's a constant inspiration to me...so forget the 'luck' part.
But none of this matters, it's just how I see things. For some reason that's beyond me many people do enjoy all this.
So carry on entering and the best of 'luck' with your efforts.
Posted
I don't much enjoy competitions - because usually they set the subject matter, and that may be (and usually is) of no interest to me at all. So I tend not to enter unless I have a picture in existence or planned that's just what I hope the comp specifies; or if there's a hugely vast prize, preferably in cash, to accompany it. I'm past the age at which I feel at all happy about transporting pictures to a hand-in point; but beyond that, the idea of art being any kind of competition repels me - it's always nice to win prizes; I have won a few (never the big juicy ones); but the thought that I was any better than any other competitor (and certainly the thought that they were any better than me!) does not appeal to me. It's not a race, and if it were I wouldn't want to enter it.
Still - some people love them; they inspire them to get working; give them a reason to crawl from beneath the duvet and set the easel up - can't really argue with that, but on the whole don't want to do it.
Posted
I tend to put stuff in the POL competitions but only if I have something already done. I put it in with our much expectation though have won a couple and yes it is a feel good moment. A bit of fun . It is all in the eye of the beholder and which side of the bed they got out of on the judgement day.
Posted
That is interesting Lewis. I asked from a selfish point of view. I was wondering what you considered to be your best work. You are right, art is subjective not one thing that an objectively measured. I only enter online competitions. The bother of sending them to locations all over the country is beyond me. However I have one a couple of completions with POL, both resulting in being sent interspersing new materials, which I would not have bought otherwise. I also won a daylight easel lamp from a competition, where I only had to enter my name. Brilliant! Nothing ventured nothing gained.
Posted
I've entered two art competitions in my life... one about 6 years ago, a (local) portrait competition where you are sent a photo of the person and paint it, and the second, the TALP open in 2019.
The first was about having something to challenge me - I hadn't painted people on any scale before then, (it was the drummer from Pulp), and whilst I didn't come anywhere in the prizes, I really enjoyed it. It was also interesting to see other artists' take on the same subject too. And fun to eavesdrop on people's conversations as they were wandering around the pictures!!
The second competition was my first time in the TALP open. I had not long quit the '9 to 5' office life, and needed a kick up the rear motivation-wise, so I entered my favourite painting of that time, hoping that I could show my painting somewhere other than my living room.
Well, I can't tell you what a boost to my confidence it has had. I was absolutely thrilled to be selected, and never thought much else of it until the night before I was due to visit Patchings with a group of my mums art friends. I went online to have a look at what had won the various prizes... and fell off my chair. I had won the Leisure Painter category.
At Patchings the next day, Mum and I went to have a look at the Leisure Painter part, and there was a 'sold' dot on my painting. If I was on a chair at that point, I would have fallen off it again. We also met one of the judges, who was so encouraging telling me what he saw in my picture, and that my price tag was way to low! And later I received the most lovely email from the couple who bought it.
All of these things... from entering, to being selected, to winning a prize, seeing my picture in a proper gallery, talking to one of the judges, and a complete stranger buying it.... All without which I would't have the confidence I have now.
I do still need a kick up the rear quite often though!
Edited
by Helen Martell
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