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What I learned about art is that competition is hostile to raw
creativity. By raw creativity I mean the link, the point, where the
art spirit releases its vision to the artist. Art intuitions are
released when the artist has let go, when he is not thinking. When
one starts the thinking process, the mind then gets in the way of
this flow from spirit to the hand.
When one starts thinking “art competition”, the whole ego process
starts up. We become more concerned with getting the piece
successfully into the show, or sold for a good amount. If we are
successful, our ego gets a stroke and we feel good. If we are
unsuccessful, oh well….
The process of applying to an art competition involves many things.
Most have in common, slides. These document your work, but they are
a bane to the artist. They cost a lot, are time consuming, and are
useless most of the time. You also need to have duplicate
slides available as well.
The artist’s statement is another part that is redundant. Your
work in your media is the statement. That’s why you do it. Why
do we have to verbalize something that we have created? We
chose to express it in another media. We would write it rather
than create the art if we could.
We also have the physical mechanics of packaging our “proposal”.
Picture taking, image processing, image sorting, image labeling,
image storage, recording systems, pricing, addresses, the check for
the inevitable fee, and a trip for mailing. All these parts
take a toll on the artist. He is not creating. He is
caught in a competition, a friendly fight, where his energy is put
into winning something.
I speak from the heart, for I have experienced this competition
process many times. It seems to be an artist’s trap, a “Catch
22”…. If you enter the game, your time is used. If you
don’t play the game, who’s going to see your work, maybe buy it, and
tell you how great you are?
PALUL
March 2005
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