I feel like I pretty much work my ass off for every piece of recognition I get. However, every once and a while an opportunity comes to me unsolicited. Several months ago, Andy Adams of Flak Photo emailed me out of the blue asking if I would be willing to provide an image for him to feature in his blogzine. On the rare occasion when such opportunities present themselves, the venues are usually not of the best quality. However, in this case a small amount of time spent on Flak Photo made me quickly realize that Andy was showcasing a pheonominal group of photographers that I would be lucky to be a part of.
Andy and I have kept up occasional correspondence since then, and recently I was honored to be one of six photographers prominently featured by Andy in an article for the Madison Isthmus newspaper. I’m not use to having my work actively pursued by others, and it’s been a nice change of pace. I’m grateful for Andy’s support, and will do everything in my power to stay on his radar as he continues to make a name for himself.
Every so often, a photographer seems to rise to stardom from out of nowhere. Having never seen their work before, you suddenly see it everywhere, and they’re winning awards left and right, getting solo shows, etc. Some disappear as fast as they come, others have the depth and tenacity to remain in the spotlight.
Recently, I would put Amy Stein into this catagory. I’m suddently seeing work from her series Domesticated all over the place. It is a very strong series, with instant inpact, yet enough subtlety to hold your interest for a longer time.
It’s really easy to buy in to the myth of the “undiscovered” artist who, working in both isolation and obscurity is suddenly discovered and rocketed to stardom. I certainly bought into this myth for some time as a young aspiring artist. Yet closer examination pretty much always reveals much more beneath the surface. I have yet to meet a successful photographer who isn’t putting a temendous amount of effort into promoting their work. It’s just part of the job, and arguably requires more time and effort than the making itself.
A quick look at Amy Stein’s blog bears this out. She is constantly on the lookout for what is going on in the contemporary photo world, and taking every oppurtunity she can find to get her work out there.
“The Culmination of a Cautionary Tale about Adolescent Love”
I’ve been reading reports of Review Santa Fe over the last few weeks. It was a great group of reviewers, and from everything I can tell, a great group of artists as well.
I had a very strange experience with my Review Santa Fe application that is worth sharing.
This year, as well as every year for the past 5, I applied to the Project Competition. That is one of my most coveted prizes. I always enter realizing it is an incredible long shot, but the recognition that comes from being honored in the competition makes it more than worth it.
I have particitpated in the Fotofest Meeting Place portfolio reviews several times, and thought I would go ahead and apply for Riveiw Santa Fe this year, even though I wasn’t sure I would be able to finance the trip.
When My application came back for the Porject Competition, there was a post-it note on it saying my work had made it in to the top 25. The total number of applicants was over 800. That put me in the top 3% of all applicants.
At the same time, my work was rejected from Review Santa Fe. There were just under 600 entries for this, with 100 photographers chosen to participate. So for one competition I was in the top 3%, and for another closely related competition (judged from the exact same portfolio) I didn’t even make to the top 17%. Go figure.
I dropped off 6 peices at the River Gallery for inclusion in their summer group show. They have agreed to take me on for the next year or so to see how my work does.
The River Gallery is in Chelsea, MI, a tiny little town 25 minutes from Ann Arbor and about an hour from Detroit. Normally I wouldn’t spend much time pursuing such an out of the way gallery, but they’re doing something right out there. From all the information I can gather, they’ve got some very good connections, and are selling more work than anyone between them and Detroit. I figured it was more than worth the shot to see what happens.
The importance of connections in the art world can’t be over estimated. Some can be carefully cultivated, others are just blind luck. One of the moms from the preschool my daughter attends hangs all the shows for the River Gallery. She heard I was an art professor at Eastern, and offered to show my work to the gallery without ever having seen it herself. I immediately got her a CD, and several phone calls later I was in.
I put together a book to give to the gallery when I dropped off the work:
Most galleries represent a significant number of artists, so I figure anything I can do to make my work easier for them to show to people is time well spent. Many galleries already keep binders of their artists, but this way they will have a set of prints I have made to the highest standards I can. If they want to take them out and put them in one of ther own binders, no problem. The digital age makes it quite easy to do all this. Resizing images to print at a smaller size is a matter of creating a Photoshop action and letting it run. All in all, it probably took about 3 hours start to finish to create the book. Best of all, since the images are printed with the same printer on the same paper, they give a great indication of the look and feel of the final prints.
Total cost of preparing work for the exhibition: $750. If I sell two prints or more, I will cover my costs and then some. If I sell fewer than two prints, the cost gets written off as part of the annual cost I pay for the “privilege” of being an artist (I have plenty to say on this, but that’s a subject for another post).
