[Ed Sukach]

Judges of competitions must have a set of guidlines or values that they can fall back on to make decisions.
The key is to recognize the rules, understand them and then have the courage to toss them out the window if your vision and creativity take you in that direction.
When you quit worrying about what others think of your work you can find the freedom to go on to greater things.

I've heard about these "rules", or "guidelines", or "values", but I've yet to see anything *published* about them.
The only crtieria I've ever seen are that the work must be "no more than "Y x Z" length and width; no more than "A" thick; must not weigh more than "B"; occasionally, "Must have been done withhin the last "C" years;.... and, "Will be judged on `originality'" (An out-and-out LIE).

Judging is based on SUBJECTIVE evaluation/s - and that means "whatever the judge chosen thinks about it."

Competitions have reasons for NOT publishing "The True Criteria for Judging" ... the first is plainly that the judges don't know, consciously, themselves; second, if the entrants did know, all work submitted would invariably look the same - resulting in a boring, monolithic exhibition.

In my opinion, critiques have one redeeming factor: they satisfy one's curiosity about how their work affects others - inaccurately.

Some critique (I estimate about 1%-2%) *IS* useful in steering our work - but it is a DEADLY sin to use them as the sole determing factor for "what to do".