i am scheduled to do a raw event in a few weeks but have heard terrible things from everyone about how it is a scam. can you please please share your experience with me?

I understand these comments listed above. I think you have a positive and optimistic perspective on your experience and involvement and I do wish you the best of luck. The only thing I urge you to ask is, after having worked with RAW, do you honestly see yourself going on to display your work in contemporary art galleries that will market your work to real world collectors and provide you with more than a video and a feature on a website? Yes, there are juried exhibitions and you have to "pay-to-play", as you say, but this is paying for some of the highest respected curators, critics, artists, and grant organizations to look at your work. I absolutely do not place RAW in that category because frankly, I believe they have very little aesthetic sensibility. Their events are essentially night-club parties with a hodge-podgy mix of any type of art. Basically, anyone that is emerging, makes some type of art and will pay them to be involved can do these events - do you really, as an artist, want to put yourself on that boat? What other opportunities have sprung forward with serious, upstanding galleries? I urge you, and all artists, to do research on online marketing and to do it for yourself - it's a great tool to reach out to art communities (this is free, you don't need to pay to network). Ask these questions: what does an online feature on your website even mean? Am I really getting a lot of exposure here? Do they reach out to third party press affiliates to get interviews for you or do they direct ALL traffic to their website? How many hits does your homepage even get and does any of this traffic get back to your website? When I asked these questions, I was told they were not in front of my contact at RAW. This is offensive for these reasons: no artist should go into ANY show without a contract ESPECIALLY if they are paying to be involved. A contract lists out the responsibilities of each party and details the return on the artists investment for making the work, traveling for show etc. This includes information on the homepage feature and answering any artists' questions about it. A simple email and phone call does not equal a signed statement. This is foolery on the part of any artists and as most showing and professional artists will tell you a horror story about how they learned from their mistake. Always get a contract and know what everything means! When I attempted to address these emails, my contact replied in an aggressive and all caps email stating, "it is not about an investment or a return thereof." REALLY? For artists, it's ALL about investment - as you have already stated above. We "pay our dues" to make our work, travel for show, websites, business cards etc - don't we deserve a more than a sloppy negotiation and no contract? Or at the very least, answers to our questions? Any organization that would say that to an artist especially when they work with artists clearly doesn't know their client or their audience. They behave like no upstanding gallery would. I urge all artists to do their own marketing and online networking. You don't need to pay anyone to be involved in a community of artists - we are all over the internet and all talking about stuff.

Hi,This is a good painting, indeed a great job.. You must have done good research for the work, i appreciate your efforts.. Looking for more updates from your side.Thanks