How far would you go?
Why I bought my own painting from The Mall Galleries, and recreated it at ⅕ the size. A true story about speculation and validation. About the interconnected worlds of artist, art society, gallery, art movers… and the punts that some artists take to get their work out of the studio.
Midnight, fervently painting against the clock.
Contents
🎲Taking a seat at the table - the first rule of gambling
🎲Laying the bet - what are the stakes?
🎲Hedging - entering multiple open calls
🎲Double 6 - jackpot!
🎲No dice - a flaw in the plan
🎲Upping the ante - big decision
🎲Digging deep - how well did it sit with me?
🎲Double or quits - go small or go home
🎲Down to the wire - painting against the clock
🎲Play your cards right - get the ducks in a row
🎲Showtime - Ruth Borchard exhibition at Russell Cotes gallery
🎲Winner - art was the winner
🎲A full house - reflection
As an artist I try to create work that has an impact, and that resonates with people. To do this requires reach - both to find an audience, and to connect with people with the facility to help.
Society of Women Artists exhibition 2025
Taking a seat at the table
The first rule of gambling is not to risk what you can’t afford to lose. When submitting to an open call, you’re not just risking the entry fee. You’re tying your work up (from sales or other shows), and incurring other costs (framing, art transport, your travel to attend the exhibition).
You are submitting a piece of yourself, laying yourself open to rejection. Your work (or rather, your photo of it), will be subject to both a value and a curatorial judgement - is it good enough? and does it fit the curators’ vision for the opportunity? Faced with rejection, you hope it’s the latter, knowing that there’s rarely any feedback. Here are 3 examples of my work that have previously been accepted into the RPS, PAOTY, and SWLA open calls respectively (click for more info):
Laying the bet
Having finished my big Raft Of The Medusa, I realised it doesn’t fit in my bathroom, so decided to enter it into an open call.
Entry fees are about £30 per artwork. But if the work is accepted, it will cost about £500 (framing), £200 (van hire to deliver) + £50 petrol (for a round trip from Bristol to London). I would want to attend the show, so that is £100 in trains to/from Bristol. Luckily I have family in London who very kindly accommodate me.
Unless it is sold in the show, there’s another £200 + petrol for transport back to Bristol. And many hours facilitating logistics.
I looked into art couriers, but for some the size was above their max, and for others the fact I needed to go via a stop-off in Spitalfields was too complicated. Europcar van hire to the rescue!
This process is prohibitively expensive for many would-be applicants.
Hedging
I had never previously entered the RA Summer Exhibition, nor the Society of Women Artists, but felt my Raft was potentially suitable for either. Since being accepted into such prestigious exhibitions is a long-shot, and most open calls are an annual opportunity, I decided to try both. This, despite that they had slightly overlapping timescales: From the grapevine I’m aware it’s not good form to withdraw your work from an open call, but I figured the chances of getting into both were infinitesimal!
Even if T&Cs say the work doesn’t have to be for sale, it isn’t much of a stretch to assume that if it’s a selling exhibition, it’s preferable that it is. There is generally a UK industry-standard commission of about 50% on all sales, going to the organisers. So for both the SWA and RA applications, I included a sale price on my application.
Double six ⚅⚅
Dropping off the Raft at The Mall Galleries, in a homemade quilt bag!
My Raft picture was accepted into the SWA (hooray), but not the RA (phew).
The biennial Ruth Borchard self portrait prize was also open (I’ve previously been longlisted, and have a soft spot for the Ruth Borchard story). The exhibition for this was after the SWA show, and didn’t require work to be for sale. So I decided to enter my Raft for that too, as it contains a literal self portrait, and also as ‘womankind’.
Imagine my delight to learn that my painting was shortlisted for the Ruth Borchard prize, with an invitation to bring it to the in-person judging of the final round, in the Piano Nobile gallery (organisers of the Ruth Borchard prize) in London, shortly after the close of the SWA show.
No dice
It was at this point that I came to realise my cunning plan had a flaw. In order to proceed to the final round of the Ruth Borchard prize, I would have to be the painting owner, and my painting would have to be available for purchase into the collection by the foundation. Otherwise it would have to be withdrawn from the prize. Not unreasonable, given that this is the point of the collection.
Another condition of proceeding was not to disclose being shortlisted until the official results announcement (22nd July).
Upping the ante
So, with a few days to go before the SWA show opened in The Mall Galleries, I knew that if my painting sold I would have to withdraw it from the Ruth Borchard prize. Yikes! What would you do?
I took what I hoped was a long objective look at the situation:
I was under no pressure from Piano Nobile to commit: they were happy for me to wait and see if it sold at the SWA.
I didn’t even want to ask the SWA (who themselves had effectively taken a punt on me with a large area of Mall Galleries wallspace) to take the painting off sale. They are a charity who I want very much to support, and that could mean them losing commission.
I knew (not least from Katherine Tyrell’s copious evidence) that most sales in such exhibitions are well below the Raft price bracket (and size). So it was statistically unlikely to sell.
I had had a couple of genuine enquiries (in addition to the ones that start with “Your artwork is so unique and precious - is it for sale?”!).
With a few recent commission payments in my business account, buying my own painting from the SWA show was an extreme but viable option.
Interview with sculptor Helen Sinclair, President of the SWA
I was nervous that buying it myself would be considered manipulating the market, or depriving visitors of a chance to buy. But a bit of research revealed that artists do sometimes buy their own paintings if, for example, they want to take them out of circulation or edit them. In December 2021, British artist Keith Coventry purchased seven of his own paintings (originally shown in the 1997 Sensation exhibition) at a Sussex auction for approximately £1,000 each. With plans to donate them to a UK museum, he thereby reclaimed control of his early work.
So I took a deep breath and entered into a very positive discussion with SWA leadership. With their backing, I went onto the website, pressed ‘buy’, the red dot went on, and I could get on with enjoying the fabulous 164th Annual Exhibition of the SWA at The Mall Galleries.
Digging deep
Ultimately, I decided the value to me of being in the SWA show, of supporting them as an organisation, and of securing the shortlisting for the Ruth Borchard prize, was worth my costs, including the commission on the sale. My art practice is in many ways quite frugal - I build my own website, do my own marketing, have a home studio, and don’t spend much on materials or workshops.
I had two regrets: that I couldn’t persuade the SWA to take their full commission entitlement, and that I had to be obtuse with visitors who commented excitedly about The Red Dot.
Frankly though, moments like this are priceless:
A visit to the SWA show from the people who modelled for The Raft Of The Medusa
So the next challenge was transporting the painting from The SWA after-show pickup at The Mall Galleries to the Piano Nobile gallery (also in London) for RB prize judging. This would mean 2 more big van trips in and out of London from Bristol, only a few days apart. I am extremely grateful that the Mall Galleries team were generously flexible on the SWA pickup date, storing my painting for an extra few days. This meant I could organise a courier with capacity for the XL painting size to deliver it directly to Piano Nobile for judging.
Double or quits
The next issue was the upcoming Ruth Borchard shortlisted works exhibition at the Russell Cotes gallery in Bournemouth. To participate in this, the selected self portraits have to be under a certain size. That certain size is, unsurprisingly, considerably less than 2.3m wide. D’ohhh!
Luckily the Piano Nobile staff reminded me of this well in advance of the exhibition. They asked if I perhaps had a smaller version, representative of the finished piece, that could be exhibited.
So… that’s how I found myself in Cass Art looking for canvases of the same proportions as the big Raft, and came to be painting ‘spawn of Raft’, at 100x70cm.
Would it be possible to paint a scaled down copy of my 2.3x1.6m Raft Of The Medusa (that took months), in only 7 days? 🤷. Was I chasing an opportunity of uncertain nature? Not really, because Piano Nobile had assured me it would be included in the show if I could do it in time.
Down to the wire
There were many quick wins, second time round. Most of the time on the big Raft was spent on decision making, filming, documenting, having a hip replacement, Christmas, etc. You can watch the entire process on video here.
This time I had no decisions to make, and all the references to hand. Bouguereau apparently enjoyed copying his own paintings, and to be honest so did I. On hand was my daughter Izzi (who is the figure holding the book in the foreground). Izzi knew the original well, and is an excellent artist herself, so gave me vital quick critical feedback throughout the painting process.
My only distractions were uncancellable social engagements, and driving practice with Leon (that’s my son Leon’s body draped over the woman in the red dress in the Raft. Leon who has since passed his driving test first time!).
On the home straight, painting the edges ready for framing
Also, in a happy accidental turn of fate, the canvas I’d bought was clear gesso’d linen, so for all the light squares on the quilt in the painting I was able to just leave the canvas unpainted. The linen weave lent it a beautiful fabric look. Painting quickly encouraged me to be more decisive, and although working smaller, I was looser. I didn’t stress so much about likenesses to specific models either, and enjoyed painting the sky much more.
Play your cards right
Mike is very patient with me rocking up to collect with an entourage of friends
I had tee’d up my framer, Mike Ogden at Sky Blue, reassuring him that the diagonals were exactly equal, ie the canvas on stretcher bars was perfectly square. I painted using Liquin to speed up the drying time, and a spot of cobalt dryer in the slower-drying pigments. It was all done in a few days, and only took a couple of days more (thank you, heat wave!) to be completely touch dry in time for the framing appointment. I was then able to give it a very careful coat of exhibition varnish AFTER framing, ready for delivery to the Russell Cotes gallery for hanging, four days later.
Showtime
As a shortlisted artists, I was invited to the Private View at the Russell Cotes gallery on 22nd July. I asked my late mother’s dear husband Malcolm to be my guest. He lives nearby, and told me that he and my mother (a member and regular visitor to the RA Summer Exhibition) loved going to the Russell Cotes gallery together. I was excited to bring him, particularly as it was a complete surprise to him that I had any involvment in the show.
Malcolm and I had a wonderful evening. It was such an honour to meet the judges, the other shortlisted artists, and most of all to see their incredible work.
Winner winner chicken dinner
The self-portrait photograph by Hanieh Yavari was an absolutely deserving overall winner. Hanieh gave a most moving speech about her work, articulating the message about women’s situations across the world, how hair being seen as something to be covered, and other elements are addressed by her photograph.
The show of shortlisted self portraits in Bournemouth, surrounded by Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces in the beautiful Russell-Cotes gallery is open until 7th September . Well worth a visit (included in the price of entry to the entire gallery), this place was a favourite of my late mother and husband Malcolm. The long and shortlisted entries are permanently available to view online here
A full house
Completed and framed with hours to spare!
To be accepted into an open call for an exhibition, or to win a prize for your work is something many artists (myself included) crave. A void that is rich for exploitation. Done with integrity, it is a well-trodden, fairly democratic path towards exposure, particularly for people who lack network and contacts. At every turn, my experience of the SWA, The Mall Galleries, Piano Nobile, The Russell Cotes gallery, and the Ruth Borchard prize was positive.
But like gambling it can become all-consuming. When big open calls send out their decision emails, there is a joyful flurry of announcments on social media by artists who have had work accepted. And a flurry of messages of despondency by those who have received a rejection. For many the costs of participating are prohibitive, although some societies go to some lengths to reduce this barrier.
Being in exhibitions and having gongs gives you news for your followers, pictures for your socials, a tribe of co-exhibitors, fodder for your CV. Repeated acceptance is the path towards membership of historic societies such as the ROI, RSMA, SWA, SWLA, RP, etc. And don’t even get me started on connections, validation and affirmation.
On the days when you don’t really feel like facing the easel, or when you’re tempted to abandon a piece, having an open call to aim for can be the catalyst for breaking through to new horizons in your art practice. I value the opinions of others, and love doing commissions. For me, these are complementary to having the clarity and skills to make authentic original work.
I am so grateful to have the security and support needed to paint whatever comes into my head. And at the time of writing, a giant Raft painting, which is on sale, and back in the studio!
