SEDONA ARTS CENTER - SCAM ALERT!
Because there
are so many more artists than places to display art, as artists, we’re always
seeking venues. The art gallery is of
course the ideal venue but there are also many alternatives; bars, coffee shops
restaurants, libraries, schools, and corporate offices often display art. Between these spaces (which seldom sell any
art) and dedicated gallery spaces (which also seldom sell much art) exist arts
organizations where art can be displayed (also seldom sold).
These are the camera clubs, the art guilds, local arts centers, and
those types of organizations. While you
may find ‘your people’ in these mid-level organizations I also posit that they
are among the worst places for art to be seen and sold. Most of these organizations exist because of
the financial largess of their ‘members.’ They make their income from fees charged to artists.
Their ‘leaders’ rule by ego and their membership, by and large, exist of
elderly amateurs. They’ll take your
membership and entry fee money and if you should ‘win’ one of their meaningless
‘contests’ you’ll get a participation trophy in the form of a five-dollar
ribbon from Michaels. Now your
seventy-year-old self can shoot a selfie standing next to your prize and you
get a moment of geriatric ego-stroking after your retirement from a job that
left you just enough funding to buy a paintbrush.
The lynchpin
for all of this is money. If you’re
willing to spend some bucks in the form of memberships, donations, entry fees,
etc. you can get a show. Your art
doesn’t have to be any good so long as your check doesn’t bounce.
Here’s a recent
example of how one arts organization takes advantage of too-eager artists:
Last Fall I
submitted and got one piece juried into an exhibition at what I thought was a
prestigious exhibition space at a perceived ‘arts destination,’ The Sedona Arts
Center in Sedona, Arizona. I paid a
thirty dollar entry free via Call For Entry.
Since Sedona is only an hour away from my studio delivering the artwork
to the venue wasn’t expensive or too time consuming. At drop-off the one person I met was cordial
and professional. Later I returned to
the gallery for the opening reception.
It was a typical group show; not bad but a little uneven with some
wonderful pieces displayed right next to others that made you wonder how they
got in the show. There was decent sized
crowd on hand, good food, a band and all the ’art show festivities.’ The only thing I found a little off-putting
was that during the two hours I was there not a single soul spoke to me. Oh well, Sedona can be super-snobby and I
probably didn’t bring the right crystals or dress 'new age' enough.
Despite being
aggressively ignored at the reception, and not winning a ribbon, or selling the
art, I (stupidly) considered the exhibition a personal success. I’d exhibited in Sedona before, but this was
the nicest place yet. I already decided
to submit to whatever their next call could be.
Big mistake!
It was exciting
to receive the next call for entry and I began preparing my three entries. Naively I was looking forward to going back
to Sedona for another exhibition. I
carefully read all the terms and conditions on the Sedona Arts Center website
and, after carefully reading the same on the Call For Entry website I found,
buried deep within the content, the ‘requirement’ of a donation to the Arts
Center. I read it a couple times to be
sure because no donation had been required for the previous exhibition. How does the Sedona Arts Center determine
which artists need to donate while others need simply pay the entry fee? This is not an equitable system and it
strikes me as an unethical business practice.
I figured it was simply some sort of non-profit organization
formality. I searched and searched for
the amount of donation required but found no numbers whatsoever. So, as a formality, I donated ten
dollars. This along with my thirty
dollar entry fee brought my participation fee up to forty dollars. Forty bucks is about my limit to be judged
(usually badly) to off went my money and JPEGs and I waited for notification.
Then about a
week before notification I received this letter which, to put it in legal terms
is:
Extortion
Here is their
extortion letter in its entirety:
jd@sedonaartscenter.org
Sun, Jan 28,
4:00 PM
Good
Afternoon,
Thank you to
everyone for applying for the Annual Juried Show. This email is to let you know
we do not have you as a current donor. For this exhibition, we do require for
all artists to be a current donor. If you feel there is an error, please let me
know so I can double check our system. If you still wish to be considered for
the exhibition, please follow the link below to become a donor. Artists need
only be a “Friend” Level donor to be considered.
Thank you so
much!
JD Jensen
Operations
Coordinator-Sedona Arts Center
928.282.3809
https://sedonaartscenter.org/donate/#!
The moment I
received that email I knew I was screwed and there would be NO WAY I’d get
juried into the exhibition. No donation = no show. No pay = no display I replied
with this letter of explanation to JD Jenson:
Mon, Jan 29,
9:01 AM
Hello:
I am
a donor to the Sedona Arts Center & made a donation just before I submitted
to the 43rd Annual Juried Exhibition.
In light of
the NEW information from your email, I think we may have a problem.
I did
carefully read the instructions on the Call For Entry and I did find the
requirement for a donation. However,
nowhere in the instructions did it say a $60 donation at the 'Friend' level was
required. The donation amount was NOT
stated at the time I made the submission.
Based on the information provided I made a minimum $10 donation ($10.29
to be exact) which, according to instructions, I thought satisfied all the
entry requirements.
So, I
fulfilled all the requirements of donation plus $30.00 entry fee when I made
the donation and submission on January 3.
I have cut
& pasted the 'eligibility criteria' from the 'call for entries' page
below. I have also cut & pasted the
receipt for my donation to the Sedona Arts Center. I hope this is helpful. In the future the donation amount requirement
should be stated specifically.
I followed
the instructions I had.
How do we
proceed now?
Dale O’Dell
* Note my letter was courteous and professional and non-confrontational.
His letter was an
ugly and clumsy attempt to coerce an additional fifty bucks from me which would
bring the entry fee to ninety dollars ---an amount I would not pay. The Sedona Arts Center never stated the
amount required for ‘donation.’ This
violates two American laws:
Extortion
And
Bait-and-Switch
(changing the fee, ex-post-facto)
JD Jenson never
had the courtesy to reply but the usual game is, “Oops, we made a mistake, you
still owe us a donation.” I’ve seen this
so many times I know the scam, it looks like a mistake but it’s actually
covering for a scam. Based on the facts
of what happened, my view of the Sedona Arts Center is they’re perpetrating a
scam. (Or they’re stupid. Your choice guys, scammer or moron? You can be both.)
Again, because
of my lack of adequate donation I was rejected from the
exhibition. They'll say my work was no good but if you'd look at what I submitted, it's really good. It's not about the work!! My total cost for this
rejection was $40.29. Here’s their boilerplate rejection:
Dale Odell:
Thank you so
much for submitting your work for consideration of the 43rd Annual Juried
Exhibition and Sale. We regret to inform you that the listed works were not
selected to be a part of the show this year.
We had more
than 125 artists submit over 325 pieces to be juried. This is the highest
volume of entries we have ever received. There were 83 artists that were
selected to be a part of the show this year. It was a very competitive show.
We hope that
you will continue to submit work for our upcoming exhibits. The new season of
shows will be posting in the coming months.
Clearly I’ll
never have anything to do with the Sedona Arts Center ever again. As far as I’m concerned they’re liars and
scammers. But since they so blatantly
tried to extort money from me let’s take a moment and do the math. It’s easy math and if more artists would Do
The Math they’d be scammed less often.
From JD
Jenson’s email:
125 artists
submit 3 pieces each at $30.00 per submission = $3750.00
125 artists
donate $60.00 each = $7500.00
They may
argue that some are members and already paid a donation, which is irrelevant
because they’ve already got the money.
So for
essentially doing nothing except viewing entries on a website the Sedona Arts
Center has received $11250.00.
DON’T BE A
SCAM VICTIM
DON’T
EXHIBIT AT THE SEDONA ARTS CENTER
