Marketing yourself?

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

An interesting question. In fact, I have been telling my students and other portrait artists for years that entering competitions is a fun, if stressful, enterprise. It gets your face out there and is noticed by your peers, but does not make much difference with your clientele. As Chris says, you are hired based on if the client likes your work, not on your list of accomplishments. This is what I thought.

However....I just returned from my first "art party" since winning the "Best of Show" in the PSA competition in 2000. I don't think that I received any additional commissions based on the win, the clients still buy based on the quality of the work, but a very interesting thing happened. Commissioning me gave the client "bragging rights." Suddenly, it was not just the "Best of Show" for those entering the PSA competition in 2000, I was the "Best in the United States," and the "Best in the World." It all became embarrassing to me, and the more I tried to correct the overstatements, the more "humble" I was accused of being. This may have an impact. I do not know as yet. I will tell you why I think it is valuable to enter the competitions.

1) It teaches you to learn how to take good photos of your finished portraits, how to prepare slides, how to follow entry rules. This helps you to understand how to present your work in a professional manner.

2) If you are striving to create the "work of the year" for the competitions, you are pushing yourself to paint better this year than you did the previous year -- to constantly improve.

3) You learn to honestly evaluate your work. You see who is below you and who is above you in quality of work. You can chart your learning progress and find ways to improve.

4) It places you in a position to take criticism in a safe atmosphere, to be evaluated by your peers. A scary place to be, and not for every artist, but I learned a tremendous amount from kind and honest artist judges who truthfully judged my work.

5) There is nothing like waiting to see your painting up there on the big screen. The anticipation is overwhelming. I give the PSA and ASOPA credit for picking the ten finalists before the competitions. It was unbearable to wait in the dark, crowded banquet hall while the finalists were chosen from 200 (or 600) entries. With the ten finalists chosen before the conference begins, there are only ten people in the banquet hall who are too nervous to eat, instead of all of the 400 artists who entered the competition.

Bottom line, is it necessary to enter competitions to have a successful portrait art career? No.

Will you get more commissions if you win a competition? Probably not.

Will you have a better chance of getting the notice of the Art Agencies and Galleries? Yes.

Will you have a better chance to teach? Yes.

Like a chilly swim in icy water, is it good for you even if it's uncomfortable at the time? I think so.

So go for it. Gambaro!

Peggy Baumgaertner