MY FIRST SPECTRUM SUBMISSION

After years of nosing in Spectrum volumes on the bookshelves of specialized stores and being awed by the fantasy art of so many great artists, I have just tremblingly closed the envelope on MY very first Spectrum submission... I cannot believe I found the courage to really do it. This moment is the anticlimax of weeks of thinking about it, planning the art during the semester with this goal in mind, trying three different printshops (alas, Spectrum only accepts submissions in printed form) and pondering hours on the merits and drawbacks of each printed variant - selecting one first, than changing my mind by the minute and finally actually shipping the one I thought at the beginning to be the worst... Getting endlessly angry at Photoshop color management, the printer's color management, the obtusity of printshops clerks, the costs of anything in Switzerland, etc, etc, etc....
This is a very emotional moment for me, as getting into Spectrum is one of my short-term goals. Many new fantasy artists got their first commission or at least their first agent after publishing in Spectrum. I promised myself that I would make it by 2014, so this is my first shot at it of two that I have available to meet my goal.
Honestly, I do not really believe I can make it this round, and I probably would have chickened out if one of my instructors had not correctly pointed out: "what do you have to loose?". An interesting question. The answer is not "nothing", as you may think. At stake is a little piece of self-confidence, some unuttered hopes and a real, cruel world judgement on exactly how good you are....or are not yet. But I do think I can cope with that.
In my eyes, the thought that Mike Whelan and Irene Gallo (both in the Jury this year) will actually see my work with their own eyes (even if just for 1/10th of a second), maybe even step closer for a second look, is interesting enough.

Spectrum entries are juried in a very peculiar way - the art is spread out on endless rows of tables and the jury members snake their way slowly up and down the aisles and give their votes. An awkward, time-consuming, paper-consuming and space-consuming way, but I guess it has its merits.

So, after much pondering I am submitting four works....probably only one of them has a narrow chance, but since they are very different from each other is worth giving it a try, I think.
Now off to the post office...