guidelines for entry
- You must be local to Richmond, VA. If you do not claim 'Richmond' to be home and/or live within reasonable distance of the Richmond city limits or immediately surrounding areas, your application will not be reviewed.
- The artist collective is a juried entry private group. Initial submissions will be reviewed by a core group of artists that comprise the board, and if there is interest, you will be asked to meet with the collective for us to further explore the themes and texture of your body of current work. No one will speak for you, your productivity and your work will dictate the outcome of your application. This is not a best friend's club and there is no membership by association. The collective is not a cool kids club, and there is no elitism involved - our goal is simply to foster a greater independent arts scene in Richmond and to develop a group of active, working artists that will continually push and inspire each other.
guidelines for entry (cont.)
- The group is for the exclusive benefit of productive, semi-professional or professional artists interested in pushing their art form and promoting the local arts scene in Richmond, Virginia. You will be expected to maintain a body of current work as an active, practicing artist, and be willing to show that work via multiple outlets, including member businesses and by promoting and maintaining your own artistic endeavors. There will be peer reviews of work quality and productivity on a 6 month basis. We will not tell you what to create, or how to create it, but we will expect you to maintain a certain level of quality, volume (medium dependent, of course), and a general attitude of positivity toward advancement as an artist and the exploration of the world around you.
- The categories of artwork that we are currently accepting submissions for include the following: sculpture, painting, printmaking, craft, photography and illustration.
the process for application
1. Upon completion and submission of your application, the board will review your work and details and decide whether to decline or proceed with the interview process. The application must be complete or it will be ignored. Please do not take an initial decline personally, it simply means that your experience or work may need some development or that we believe the current body of work would not be compatible with our goals of public display and community interaction. We encourage reapplication with stronger work.
2. You may be asked to meet with the group to further discuss your work. This is not a guarantee of acceptance. Our goal is to learn more about your work and where it comes from. We would like to see your work in person to get a better visual experience, and to ask you questions about your inspiration and the creative process. Our goal is to simply pull inspiring local talent (both professional and emerging) into a group of peers that can feed off of each other and continue to foster a more diverse and independent local arts scene.
what we expect from you
We need dedicated, productive artists willing to interact with other artists and members of the community to foster a greater sense of independent local art. We have an incredible number of amazing artists producing work in this city, and we expect everyone within the collective to work toward developing a greater awareness of our local talent. You will be expected to promote yourself (and by association, the collective) via your own web presence, solo shows and community interaction. We expect participation in periodic group meetings and reviews, and in the online member forum where we will develop ideas for show themes, arrange group shows, and help each other with the creative process. Above all, you will be expected to keep it fresh, with new work and new ideas so that the collective as a whole can remain a constantly evolving source of artistic inspiration for the community.
what to expect from the collective
The collective itself has a two-fold purpose. The first is solely to benefit the artist by providing an atmosphere conducive to creating new work. By immersing ourselves into this artistic social atmosphere, it is our hope that all of us will grow technically and conceptually as artists. From this aspect of the collective, you can expect to be pushed and questioned about your work - not in a controlling sense, but in an everyone is equal, idea fueled "what if" peer-inspiration manner. You can expect help arranging your body of work for showing, and have a group of people to rely on for feedback, manpower to hang shows, and a group of people willing to help promote your shows and work. You can expect a comfortable atmosphere in which to ask questions about new techniques and ideas, and a pooling of mental resources to draw from for developing those techniques and ideas. You will be promoted via the web site roster with samples of your work, and by association whenever the group participates in an event or has media coverage. You will have access to a member forum for interaction with other members and the ability to be involved in the discussion and planning of new shows, selection of new show spaces and the ability to feed off of continual discussion of works in progress and new ideas.
what to expect from the collective (cont.)
The second facet of the collective has to do with the power of numbers and the benefits of a unified artistic front. If there ever was a war path for artists, this is it. As a collective we aim to work toward growing the local arts scene in Richmond by getting more art in front of more people. We work with local businesses of all kinds - non-profits, galleries, restaurants, retail spaces, and real estate groups, in an effort to find creative ways to surround our local population with work created within our own geographical boundaries. The core members of the collective will be continually working with businesses, the media and the community to develop new opportunities for local artists to be seen and heard. Our goal is to allow each artist to shine individually while at the same time bringing light to the diversity of the entire group. You can expect the group to develop local opportunities for you to show your work, and to suggest artists appropriate for particular shows or job opportunities within the community. You can expect the collective to maintain a roster of participating businesses and facilities with a pre-concieved template of circumstances, so that finding a space to display a particular medium of work or subject matter becomes much easier. We will also work with entities showing local work to develop fair display and commission guidelines to ensure everyone benefits in the end.
