As an only child, I did everything with my parents. There were no theme parks or tumble gyms and kids birthday parties on the weekends- there were art walks, museum visits and gallery openings. I was at Frieze at the Santa Monica airport, before it was the monster art fair it is now- before it was “FRIEZE!”
I always thought they were kind of boring, and would joke with my mom about taking a “vacation without a gallery visit,” but WOW, what an impact those outings, and being surrounded by the arts, had on my overall well roundedness as a human. I find it preposterous when I meet an adult, who has not traveled, has no idea who Jackson Pollock is, or who hasn’t read Farenheit 451. My mom was hell bent on raising a cultured JAP (her words, not mine), and she did.
It’s so funny, since as a mom myself, I am very proactive in raising my son to be cultured in the arts, and while we do spend a lot of time at the skatepark and the arcade- we also do tons of museum and art gallery visits, and local theater presentations, and I am the mom at the adult “thing” with child. As a matter of fact he is next to me as I write this, finishing his build out of monthly STEM and craft box that we subscribe to- creativity and boredom over mindless screens will save the next generation—-I digress.
30 years ago, a “juried” show was not what it is now in the art world. It was a once maybe twice a year, call to artist who wanted to submit their work to a gallery, to have it “juried” by the owner and then displayed in a special exhibit for the month. My mother, I swear, was one of the inventors of this exposure for artists.
I remember her, in her office, looking at slides on the projector and putting them into yes/no piles—- which turned into emails of jpegs, to now, the many platforms that allow artists to submit their work seamlessly and be notified of their acceptance in minutes.
It was fascinating to see the new works she would display and the new artists she would discover. These days, it is one of the only ways artists get seen anymore- with the myriad of galleries closing after COVID, changing the infrastructure of representing artists and the evolving culture of the art gallery world.
So, I did some digging into the archives and found a comprehensive list of all of the FREE places to submit your work, search for submissions and get directed in that way, so if you’re an artist, this is for you. This is the art advice my mom loved to give.
Here are some of the top free sites and places you can explore to submit your work:
Until next week.
xo