Should I enter?

So I’m fairly new to the art world. I’ve been drawing all my life, yes- but have only started selling my work regularly (pet portrait commissions) for the last two years. Outside of the local fairs my mom would encourage me to enter my artwork when I was a kid, I haven’t ever shown my work publicly or submitted my work into any contests. Thus, I feel very overwhelmed by the whole process.

However, these past few weeks I’ve been trying to push myself to venture outside of my cozy artistic introvert’s hobbit hole and do a few things I’m generally uncomfortable doing (hello blogging). Enter, the juried art show. I have found a juried art show (competition?) local to me and I thought it sounded like fun- and by “fun” I mean completely terrifying and just by thinking about it my feet mysteriously start to feel numb.

Yet- I push myself into taking small steps forward with encouraging nods and quiet “atta girl”s……

Ok ok enough with the poetic digression. Here’s the deal: the theme for the show is the human form. And I happen to have a piece that I’m a little proud of, which is consequently of a human. Here it is-

“Eminence” graphite and polychromos on illustration board. Reference picture from Pixabay.com

Alright so what do you think- and just so you know my little artistic ego is very weak and is prone to looooooong bouts of depression and it takes a ton of coaxing with vanilla chai lattes and chocolate to even remotely get it to peak out of its hole again SO IN OTHER WORDS FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THATS HOLY don’t crush my spirit.

Here’s what I’m wanting to know: #1. Is this considered to be in the broad category of “human form”? I mean, it’s a human face, which is a part of the overall human form but…. let’s just be honest here, there are no breasts included in my drawing so I’m wondering if that disqualifies it or……*clears throat * never mind.

Question #2- is it even worth it? A juried show I mean. Worth the time, money, extreme social exhaustion that will take me days to recuperate from? Don’t get me wrong here, I really do want to push myself, I just don’t want to push myself in the wrong direction. And I know that none of y’all can give me a direct yes/no answer on this because “everyone’s situation is unique, yadayadayada” I would like to know your own experiences with this sort of thing. IMPART ME WITH YOUR WISDOM. Please 🙂