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The fact that there are often as many as 100 times as many guests reading threads on this Forum as members attests to the fact that there's something here worth having a look at. There's a great deal of worthwhile material elsewhere, too, but here there's a focus, and you won't usually have to wade through 30 way-to-go posts in a technical or instructional thread before you get to the next substantial offering.
For what it's worth, this analogy regarding the application process for participating in this Forum. I work for a company that last week sold off a small part of its operation. It's a publishing company, once a book publisher, now 98% electronic (Internet, CDs, DVDs, and such). The "small part" of the operation that was sold was a college text division, still publishing books, and it simply didn't fit within the mission of the company anymore. There was NOTHING else wrong with it, as evidenced by the fact that this very small element in this huge corporation just sold for over 7 billion dollars.
Similarly, not being juried into this Forum as a participant doesn't mean that an applicant may not in fact be a magnificent artist, perhaps wildly successful, and teaching many classes. It just means that the work actually submitted with the application -- which is the entirety of what the administrators know about you -- didn't "fit" the mission of this Forum. Sometimes the applicant simply isn't ready. Sometimes the applicant's work is great, but isn't in the vein of what this Forum is about. What it's about is thoughtfully stated at the top of the page every time you open up this Forum and see the statement of purpose and interest for the Forum.
A feeling of "insult" is painful from both sides, and certainly is never the intention here. There could be no rational motivation to inflict insult. There are other forums that get off on that, but this one doesn't.
It's simply a site dedicated to the highest levels of excellence in portraiture and in the training of dedicated and disciplined artists to achieve that level of work. It doesn't make a dime off of it. There are no awards and little prestige. Everyone does it for his or her own reasons, but there are sure a lot of other ways that top artists could spend their time. That many spend time offering something back here is something worth capitalizing on, as evidenced by the fact that when I signed on recently, there were 2 members and 103 guests reading the Forum posts.
Principles before personalities, as they say.
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