I have made it a goal to limit myself to showing in one competitive group show a year. Once I get in, I'm supposed to stop entering competitions until the next year. I haven't got very far with this goal because, at the moment, I can't afford to enter even one competition, let alone how many entries it will take to get into one show. But the goal gives me some guidance. It's a rule.
Most artists see competitive group exhibitions as opportunities for exposure, not sales. Or sometimes artists say they are showing for experience, which seems to mean another line on the show list. Hopefully, this equates to reputation. If you have a strong show record, then your work is more valuable in a gallery setting.
But how much do these credentials cost? Do you want to be in a half-dozen shows a year? Less? We know that an artist only gets accepted into a fraction of the shows he or she enters. This cost could be offset by sales at the exhibitions, but we know that an artist only sells work in a fraction of the shows he or she is accepted into.
So, let's consider some completely invented odds.
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I get into one out of every twenty shows I enter. How realistic this is depends on the kinds of shows I enter, how smart I am about evaluating the jurors, and how conventional and trendy my work is. So this figure is just for illustration. Entry fees seem to range from twenty to forty dollars, so let's just say it costs me thirty dollars to enter a show including postage. Let's also say that it costs me fifty dollars to ship my work to and from the show. And let's say that I sell one piece out of every twenty shows I get into.
Now, let's do the math.
Over the past four years, let's say I entered four hundred shows for a cost of $12,000 in entry fees.
I got into twenty shows
I spent $1000 in shipping.
I sold one piece for $2000.
Total profit or loss before any expenses other than shipping and entry fees:
-$11,000.
I lose over ten grand or $2500 a year to sell one painting in four years. On top of that, I spent 2400 hours entering the shows and mailing the work. I expect the same work will sell eventually through a gallery, so I won't factor in the cost of supplies and overhead.
We might say that it's worth the investment of over $200 a month to get me the exposure and reputation. Some would say it's worth it just to get to show the work.
If you have a good day job, you might justify it. $200 is not that much money for some people. But for some artists, that's the rent.
Is it excessive to put your work in five shows a year or is that a better goal than my one? It would take a considerable degree of discipline to enter a hundred shows a year—that's one entry every few days. Like blogging this blog, it quickly feels like stuffing notes in bottles and casting them into the sea. Many artists use the strategy of only entering regional shows where they can develop a local following and attend the receptions. Plus, they save on shipping (though not delivery). That's a good goal, but doesn't change the other expenses. Some artists get so well-established and their work is so good that they get into more shows than they are rejected from. That makes it far more worth it, but it still doesn't reduce the entry fees. Hopefully their sales increase as they get better at getting into shows, however. But that's not a given.
And, here's another illustration. If I were to sell a painting for around a thousand dollars every couple weeks, my friends would be amazed. Yet the gallery would take half the profits and that would literally leave me with $13,000 in gross sales before the overhead of art supplies and my studio.
I realize that, in our soundbite world, few would want to read a blog that looks so closely at numbers. That's a problem. We should have been required to do math like this in art school. In sociology and linguistics, they generate long equations that are supposed to tell them something and they don't get a degree until they learn to do it. But in art school, we get as far as scaling a canvas and not much further and we never talk money—ever. That parallels the art world rule of never talking money.
So, I'll continue to explore this topic in future posts, if only to work it out for myself.
