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Samples
- projectJanuary 2003
I, like many others, submitted work for the above project and I, like many others, have received the awaited rejection slip!
Was I surprised ? No! My confidence and belief in my own work, like many others too, is, on occasion, very doubtful! So the rejection slip served to confirm my opinion of my work and I will recoil into my shell again until the next time I have the confidence, or audacity, to assume I can compete with nationally and internationally recognised artists!
However, I do have an opinion about the way the results of these competitions are relayed to participants.
The rejection letter states 'due to a large number of submissions it is impossible to address each one personally ... etc, etc. Well, I'm sorry, but I do not consider 165 submissions to be too great a task to have the courtesy to address at least one line as to why the work was rejected! I am not expecting a full blown critique of my work/proposal/slides/education, etc. but I do think that the reason for rejection could, and should, be reported back to the entrant.
Surely it is not beyond time and budget to offer a simple reason for rejection - such as 'slides not clear, proposal not what we are looking for, too futuristic, more development required, etc, etc.'
To put forward submissions for these competitions involves a great deal of time, effort and money and I do believe that it is about time the Embroiderers' Guild recognised this fact and acknowledged this investment.
I honestly do not consider that a one-line explanation at the beginning of a 'cut and paste' letter is really too much to expect of a professional organisation such as the Guild.
The rejection letter also requests that an entry is made for the Art of the Stitch exhibition in 2003 - a quick glance at the form will soon confim that it is yet more money (£10 per entry), more time and effort, and yet more slides. What, though, is the return for this investment? If lucky enough to be selected it is the prestige of seeing a piece in a national exhibition; if not, another anonymous rejection slip without explanation as to why or wherefore!
Please, please, please, organisers of Embroiderers' Guild exhibitions and projects - please fulfill the fundamental reason for the existence of the Guild and encourage and help those of us who are triers.
Sara Hansson
and
... I have just been alerted to and have read the letter from Sara Hansson about the response from the Embroiderers' Guild re. the rejection for the Samples exhibition. I too felt completely baffled by the rejection letter which refused a joint proposal between an embroiderer and an enameler , both using stitch as a technique, which is an unusual and we felt unique combination and therefor exactly what the sponsors were looking for.
I am not a novice embroiderer, I am a professional embroiderer and a Senior Research Fellow at a national university, working to redirect my traditional embroidery techniques into new materials. My collaborator is a well known and respected enameler and at the time of entry was an Art and Humanities Research Fellow and we had a proposal that answered all the conditions of the competition.
We, like Sara, spent many hours of careful preparation and consultation, with much help from our fellow researchers, to fulfil the strictures of the competition. Although not personally surprised to find a rejection - I have suffered many in my long and varied career - I and all my colleagues would have been interested to know just who was chosen. I don't expect to be given a personal reason for rejection but information as to who was chosen, and why, would have given us some clues about why we were unsuccessful, always some consolation in the face of rejection and also a learning opportunity.
To
be advised to try for the other general competition
was rather adding insult to injury, as I then had
to explain to my collaborator the nature of the open
competition; she was not impressed by this suggestion
If the Guild wishes to instigate and incorporate serious
and committed research into embroidery, which I took
this competition to be signalling, it needs to think
very carefully how it reponds to all the people who
have the ambition and energy to try to enter into
these valuable and prestigious international exhibitions.
Yours very sincerely.
Janet Haigh