From Adobo Magazine
When I was a college student, I (together with my classmates) would join the yearly national art competitions not only because it is required by the school, but we also liked joining because it opens up an opportunity for networking even as a student. I was lucky enough to win in several art competitions and in fact I was the first student to win Grand Prize in a national competition from our school and the entire region. :P
Anyway, one of the competitions I joined in was the Shell National Students Art Competition which is also one of the oldest art competitions around. It is only open for students but any college students can join and don't have to be necessarily an art student. They have different categories: painting, sculpture, and digital video-making at that time. (dunno now lol) They actually have past winners who eventually became successful artists in the industry and as well as national artists too!
I won 3rd place in 2015 for video-making and semi-finalist in painting. Yeah, I was a fine arts student majoring in painting but I only win in video-making categories. XD I didn't have any background or training in film/video-making but for whatever reason I would always win in that but not in painting hahah.
Because of that, I was able to establish a connection with some people in the industry and had opportunities including getting sponsored for a Cinemalaya Institute screenwriting class (courtesy of Petron), being able to join an association with other artists, being invited in talks (that I decline hahaha cos I wasn't ready during those times), as well as being able to make friends.
One of the things I've been invited to was to be featured in an article about past women winners for Women's day.
Such doxxing 馃檲 Article from When In Manila
A few months ago, I answered a few questions about how I discovered art, how I pursued it, and view on the current art situation. As far as I know, they've also been doing some catalogs for past women winners to increase visibility and for support as well (as I think you have an idea of the current situation in the art market having mostly men).
In the article, I shared the early time how I realized for myself that I wanted to pursue an art career. Those self portraits existed way before the selfie trend came and also when DSLRs used to be so expensive hahah.
Anyway, here are links to the articles on the internet which were published on Women's Day:
ArtPlus
When In Manila
Adobo Magazine
Malaya
I don't know what their connections are but I think the main group who posted was ArtPlus. :P
It was so nice to be able to establish a connection with them early on. I was happy and proud to be able to join these competitions before cos I learned A LOT. It was also fun making art specifically with a theme and with the competition in mind and of course, the thrill as well, waiting for the results and hopefully someone would call us on the phone to tell us we won haha.
With this, I'm always thankful for them to keeping in touch with us and inviting us to talks, giving us work and feature opportunities as well. I would say these organizations really do care about the artists. :D