Columbus open jury February 8-9, 2014
Not more than about a dozen artists attended. No matter how much we stress how important it is to attend an open jury to see both your presentation and what you are competing against, artists are just not taking advantage of this. The second day about 20 artists attended, probably to see if they made the second round.
Scott Huntley, director of the Columbus Arts Festival, giving instructions to the jurors
I've said this over and over. It's about your images. Even more so if your artist statement isn't read to the jurors.
3 second preview slide show followed by 6 second slide show while scoring by medium. Five jurors scored 1-7 without the option of a 4.
Images were almost screen filling on 6 foot projection screens. There were a few obvious cases where 1400 pixel images had been uploaded because those images projected much small than the rest of the images in the presentation. ZAPP is still adding wider 1920 black borders to smaller images when you apply to a show that projects the images for the jurors.
Prior to the preview slide show and jury slide show, the category description from the application prospective was read out loud. There was no artist statement read for round one which resulted in about a 50% elimination. It was only about the images. The no statement being read was the most confusing for the mixed media categories where you had no idea what you were looking at.
The first category was metal and a jeweler applied in that category. It was pointed out to the jurors that some artists might apply in the wrong category to possibly game the system and to score them accordingly.
Artwork photographed on white backgrounds made it difficult for the jurors to see detail. I've been saying this over and over for ten years now. But the worst was a glass artist with transparent and translucent parts of their pieces. The white background made it difficult (in under 10 seconds) to see how the pieces were constructed because of the bright white through both clear and areas with cut outs.
Fiber and leather categories. If models were used, the faces and eyes were where the jurors (my) eyes went first. That made objective jurying difficult because of the time constraints. There was one wearable leather submission where the model was laying on here back with a leather ornamental neckpiece around her neck. But because her hair was spread out taking up about a third of the image, you couldn't even find what was leather in the image until it was too late to see what it was.
There were some artistically created compositions of objects but it was difficult to appreciate the photography. For example a leather designer had three of the same bags in different colors with one facing the camera head on. The straps were intertwined artistically but in such a short period of time it didn't come across as well as it should have. Larger screen filling pictures of the objects were easier to read and probably jury.
Any text on the image was either too small to be read or took up too much time in the few seconds the jurors had. And artists should TURN OFF the embedded date in their camera or at least photoshop it off the images. The few times images like that came up a humorous comment could have been made that at least you know it's current work.
It was disturbing for me to see objects floating in mid air, objects that had been cut out and dropped into a background with no shadowing which would have made it look real.
When black was a large part of the artwork, not artwork photographed on black, there needed to be a separation between the black part of the artwork and the black borders or the rest of the projection screen. If the black area touches the edge of the artwork I suggest adding a light gray stroke or border around the art so the jurors can understand the parameters of the art without spending additional time evaluating it.
Artist statements were read for round two. I've always said that photographers write the worst artist statements, always discussing their output. I can't remember how many times I heard limited edition of no more than (fill in the number) printed archivally. Painters had the second worse artist statements. Most limited it to three or four words, like "oil on canvas" or something similar.
The booth. Like all the other juries, there were a great many bad booth pictures. Unfortunately there was a few times that I was seeing some interesting artwork but I knew they would not get past the jury because of a really cluttered booth picture.
I've been doing this long enough now that a significant percentage of each show's submissions contain images that have gone through my computer. It was good to see that those images looked really good with no distracting elements. And like I said in the beginning, with no words to support or explain what you do, and in such a short period of time that they judge you, it's only about the images.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Replies
Thank you Larry for sharing such an informative review. There are so many factors that play into the digital jury system for artists to grasp! One extra thing worth sharing with the neophytes out there is this show requested I resubmit my images of paintings without a signature on each image. I've applied to a couple of other shows and never had this experience, but now all my Zapp portfolio images are signature free. Below is a description of my embarrassing tragedy of errors that you have helped me to discover and correct. Thank you!
I wish I could have attended this open jury as it would have been my first experience seeing my work displayed. I think I would have been sick to my stomach if I had attended! After reading your review, I went into my Zapp portfolio today to review my image sizes. I must say, reviewing my portfolio submitted to the show looked fine on Zapp as well as looking at each image individually when I enlarged them within Zapp. However, when I saved the file to open on my desktop, I realized two disastrous things. One was three of my four images were not jpg images but png! Second was the png images when opened on my desktop as a file were much smaller than the jpg. I am frustrated with myself to say the least.
This was my first time applying to this show and now I know I may have shot myself in the foot by not being thorough with my image uploads. You would think I would have learned my lesson at the ZAPP conference last fall with all the useful information that was shared! I will chalk this up to rushing thru something that now I wish I had spent more time double checking my files. I had originally uploaded correct images and received an email from this show asking me to submit images without my signature. I had never considered my signature on an oil painting needing to be masked. So with haste I used the stamping tool in Photoshop Elements to eliminate the name and re-saved and uploaded the files. My mistake was in uploading a file saved as a photoshop file instead of a jpg. Lesson learned. I have now made new files and marked each file with the title plus 1920 pixel 72dpi no name.jpg.
Trudging on and marking this up to a learning experience,
Amy Welborn
www.paintingsbyamywelborn.com
Hi Amy,
Don't be disheartened about image sizes. The way ZAPP is set up, once the images are uploaded you have no way of telling what size they were to begin with. ZAPP generates different sizes for different purposes and the originals are kept off line. That's why it's critical to prepare your images properly before uploading.
They should be 1920x1920 with black borders masking rectangular images. The same way as ZAPP asked for when they first went live ten years ago. Any other size guaranties the jurors at shows that use projection jurying will see them modified by ZAPP, not as they were originally uploaded.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
This is very useful, Larry. Your point about attending these is well taken, but for many of us, it isn't a practical consideration. I would have like to have gone to the open jury for KRASL, for example, but it's a two day trip for me. Same went for the Zapplication mock jury last spring. Having been on the jury for a local art festival a couple years ago, I can vouch for how important each image is. If it doesn't "pop" the whole group just moves on. (Also, thank you for the "cluttered" booth observation.) The jury I was on only read artists statements if there was some confusion about the work, but your comment about painters' artist statements is well taken also - I will be reviewing mine! Thanks very much.
It was very nice to have a talent like Larry at our open jury. His insights here are wonderful. Just to clarify a bit, our round one is a Yes No Maybe round. Round two is 1 2 3 5 6 7. We have 16 categories in which artwork is juried and yes, we do have both 2d and 3d mixed media.
I can't speak for any show other than Columbus, but as Larry points out here, in a show with a lot of applications, your images are all important. In a two round jury like ours your first impression is what gets you through to a closer look, and to let the jury hear your artist's statement.
The images of your artwork have to show off that work and nothing else, and your booth shot really needs to make a good impression. After our show is over, I spend the rest of the season going to other shows around the country and I know that there was work submitted to our jury that would have sold well in Columbus that didn't make it past round one because the photographs submitted did not do it justice.
Many shows around the country, including ours, have websites that show at least one of the photos that were sent in to the jury from each of their exhibiting artists. Take the time to look closely at those pictures and see how yours stack up.
Again, special thanks to Larry for making a long drive in less than wonderful weather to attend our jury.
Very interesting read! I've never heard of an open jury though and was wondering how you find out about them. I think it would be a very valuable thing to attend.
Here's a somewhat partial list of shows that project the images and which have open juries:
http://bermangraphics.com/blog/art-shows-that-project-the-images/
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Different shows have different jury procedures. The most common one I've participated in is to read the category definition and then a run through of the entire category to give the jurors an idea of the competition and then to start the scoring round, where the statements are read and the jurors mark their scores.
The one at Columbus, as well as at many of the large shows that have large numbers of applicants, seem to have an elimination round, judges vote yes or no, and then those with a certain score proceed to the judging round. Is that what they did here, Larry?
Two rounds. But the scoring was 1-7 without the 4 so none of the jurors could ride the fence. Then they eliminated about 600 based on the combined scores. Round two on Sunday decided the show and waiting list based on the scores. The jurors were instructed to not think about how many in each medium the show might have. They were also encouraged to talk about the images if they felt it was necessary.
I should also let people know that the image issues I pointed out didn't necessarily keep an artist from advancing to round two. They just prevented the images from being read more easily in the short period of time round one lasted.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
A little more information and two pictures added.
Larry Berman
Larry...as always....Thanks for all the positive energy you put into helping all of us out with your information, skills and insight. I hope I can pick up a little bit of knowledge from this.
Are you aware of any listing for finding out when and where open juries are held?
I know it is important and to my benefit that I find one I am able to attend...
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