My first gig after finishing an MFA was a retail job without guaranteed meal breaks. One day at lunchtime, I plopped down on the concrete steps by the back door, shoved a sandwich in my mouth, and opened my phone. The only notification was an open call forwarded from a friend. I tapped through to the application, expecting to bookmark a slideroom portal for later. Instead, the app was a simple google form. No images had to be formatted to specific dimensions; there was just a field for a portfolio site URL. Best of all, there was no fee. As a retail worker managing to create and exhibit artwork while living paycheck to paycheck, it was the first application in months that seemed... feasible. I could fill this out in five minutes on my lunch break, I thought. My next thought was, why aren't all applications like this?
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