Waiting Until the Last Minute

Some people operate best when they are under a lot of pressure. I am not one of those people. I don't prefer to do things at the last minute. So I find it to be a trial when I am forced to wait until the last minute to do something due to another party's procrastination.

When directing or curating a show, you can expect some people to wait down to the wire to get their work to you or to turn in their submission packet. There are always stragglers - that is the nature of the enterprise. So many artists have so many things on their plate that they are doing well just to keep up with their to-do lists. But a lot of organizations cater to this whether or not they intend to do so, by extending deadlines and making exceptions for people. If such behaviors are catered to time and time again, then no one has a firm reason to be punctual; it encourages a lack of professionalism and thus also bespeaks one on behalf of the organizational party who is bending the rules.

In curating shows, many galleries schedule events far in advance. This way, artists involved have notice and can plan their time accordingly to make new work or to keep their schedule free. And, since galleries schedule in advance, artists also have to do the same to ensure that their work is represented someplace. But it is possible to be invited to participate in a big solo exhibition at the last minute, within a month of showtime. This is great and can be a wonderful opportunity, but it is both a blessing and a curse at the same time because it can lend to a sparse or scattered showing of artworks, especially if the artist's best and newest works are already on display elsewhere since the artist hadn't planned for the solo show.

It is all too easy to bite off more than one can chew and to take on too many things. Especially in the arts where it can be hard to get one's work out there where it will be seen and so it is less than ideal to turn opportunities away when they present themselves. And I also realize that things can happen to cause last minute changes. That is expected. Crap happens. But how those last minute changes are handled can vary enormously and have a huge impact.

Sometimes a group, organization or individual can fall into a rut where the same things happen over and over again and a cycle of bad behavior forms. For example, if an institution chooses to extend a deadline because of a low quantity of submissions for a show, and then again for the next and the one after that, that group is establishing a pattern of behavior that actually encourages people to wait until the last minute, expecting that the deadline will be extended and thus disregarding the schedule as written. This is very very dangerous water to tread, both in regards to extending the deadline as an institution and in regards to delaying a submission as an artist.

By the nature of working in the arts, we are not wholly self-reliant. It can be a great disservice and show of disrespect to those with whom we are working (artist, curator, director, juror, outreach, publicity and so on) when we wait until the last minute to uphold our end of the bargain and thus delay others in their ability to do their own part. It is best to think about one another and to recognize that there are multiple people involved in making an exhibition happen, and not to force others to wait because of our own inability to do what is expected of us. Not only is it a matter of professionalism, but of common courtesy.