All Things Metal Clay
An Expert Guide to Making & Selling Jewelry

Metalsmith Steve Shelby asked over on the Metalsmiths Unite! Facebook page, where do people find juried gallery shows to enter? And do other metalsmiths enter juried shows?

I do enter juried shows and have been in a few, including the Gallery I/O show on the Anti-War medals, and a show last December at the Womanmade Gallery in Chicago, called Mothers.

Here are some of the places I find calls for entry:

Professional Artist Magazine (formerly Art Calendar)
Juried Art Services
Chicago Artist Resource (many calls are national)
The Society of North American Goldsmiths has an email list called SNAGnet that you can sign up for. They regularly email out calls for entry. http://www.snagmetalsmith.org/ProgramsResources/SNAGnet
Calls are sometimes posted on the Orchid list at Ganoksin.com.
Your regional metals guild is another good source for finding and/or hosting exhibitions.

Oh! And being a member of your local art centers, being on their mailing lists so you’ll hear about their calls.

I’m sure there are more, but those are the ones that come to mind that I use most often.

Contests for jewelry are held annually by Rio Grande, Fire Mountain Gems and Art Clay World.

And I have a category here on the blog, Calls for Entry and Contests.

Another thing to think about is — there aren’t that many exhibition opportunities for pure jewelry — though there are more now, expecially if you include online exhibitions by the Society for Midwest Metalsmiths, Ganoksin and Crafthaus.

One way to deal with that situation is to have another line of work that’s not jewelry, another metal art form that fits more easily into gallery shows, is larger, and doesn’t require a secure case.

What do you do? Do you exhibit jewelry in gallery shows? Or do you have another line of work that you strive to show in galleries?

What’s your favorite source for finding out about exhibitions to enter?

Photo credit: Benis Arapovic via the stock xchang.

P.S. Here’s a post called How I manage my deadlines for shows.