Submitting art to my local art gallery

This week I took another step on my art journey and went to one of the local galleries to see about how to submit my art for consideration!  A risky step for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I have no illusions as to my amateur rank among artists.  But all 23 of my Ustream followers, Ranza included, assure me that they like my work, so I am encouraged to just go for it!  So here is what I found out:



1.  It is a juried submission process--which means three or four "judges" will review my artwork, which I can direct them to by way of my blog (easy enough I thought with much relief...until I realized I haven't blogged since LAST YEAR!).  The lady said it's a pretty informal process.  They invite me to come in, ask me some questions about my work, then when I leave, they talk about me.  Nothing like pure bluntness.



2.  As is to be expected, they get a piece of the pie once my art sells.  15%, which I thought pretty reasonable, and certainly better than the 30% the other place claims!



3.  But of course there is a catch.  A fly in the proverbial soup.  It also costs $75/month to display my artwork in their gallery.  Ouch.



4.  You know what's worse than a fly in your soup? Discovering a hair right next to it.  So this was all sounding relatively doable.  Then she hammered the nail into the coffin of my dreams of getting into this gallery.  Too much with the analogies? Sorry, I can't resist!  So the kicker is that to have your artwork on display there you also have to work at the gallery two full days a month.  I don't think that's within the realm of possibility!  Tell me how that's supposed to happen when you already work full-time???  Double-ouch.



So thank goodness the other "gallery" in town, which is really an artists' cooperative store, doesn't require me to work.  Here is a link if you'd like to get a feel for what Studio616 is like:  https://www.facebook.com/Studio616McCall/photos It's a wonderful conglomeration of eclectic artwork and styles.  They carry jewelry, paintings, prints, cards, fiber art, plant art...Every time I go in there I just find myself wanting one of everything!!!  They do take a larger percentage, 30% for each sale, but they would only require 15% if I were able to work there.  I have an appointment later on today to take in some of my canvii.  Ideally, I would sell privately and that way no one would get their cut.  Etsy is an option, and there are other online art venues as well (but I think that might be a topic for another post!  Maybe I will try and put my next batch of paintings up on Etsy and see what happens :) Yay for sending beautiful artwork into the world!!!



I'll leave you with an image of one of the paintings I'm working on this week--and a challenge for my fellow blogger:  the theme is SMALL--think INCHIE! Style: Zentangle.  The only other requirement? it has to have purple--GO! ...you have 7 days from now to complete and post it here.

Happy arting everyone! 

~jo