I competed for a spot at Gallery 1010 in the candy factory and got it, that helped, and then submitted something to the Phoenix and it made it into the publication.
both these things are associated with UTK, and when they wanted to hang work at downtown west I had an easy in, some faculty had seen my work and asked me to turn it in, he hung the pieces durning a film fest of utk students.
Being associated with the university has helped me out a lot; I've always heard that if you drop of a portfolio at local coffee shops and a way to contact you they tend to call people as they have space or as they want to take things down.
Otherwise, I dunno.
