The Artist's struggle

I am refreshed and enlivened after so much energy and activity from Traditional Art Day!

This past week was an interesting one in my career as an artist. I had submitted three of my paintings to be in the running for a juried competition locally. As most of you know, these are highly subjective affairs, but I was hoping since the juror was a very well known figurative artist, at least ONE of them would be chosen. Nope. All three were denied. That is never easy to accept.

As a good friend has recently taught me though, the Universe works in mysterious ways. The day after I found out I wasn't accepted, I came across an announcement for a show I participated in last year. I contacted the gallery owner, asking if it was too late to enter, and was told that they would love to have me in their show! For the month of November I will have THREE of my paintings in a show called Exposed: Nudes in Art at Litmus Gallery in Raleigh, NC! Yippee!! (Two of the three were paintings not accepted in the juried show. Hee hee.)

Here on Deviant Art, we have the luxury of seeing so many great works of art. We have direct access to the wonderful artists creating that work. The space and community here is infinite for people all over the world to be exposed to my own work. It seems to be getting increasingly difficult to find actual physical space opportunites to get exposure for my work. One dilemma I am faced with, living in the Southern region of the United States, is that nudes are very hard to break into galleries. Private spaces can't sell them very well, and therefore aren't interested, and publicly funded galleries have their boards and sources of money advising them about who should be represented.

It is a dilemma. I can't do anything other than the work I do, and never want to compromise that. I will certainly keep trying though, and will keep working. But it is nice to know I can always come here for feedback from others going through the same artist struggle.