Open Juries this week
Columbus Arts Festival open jury February 4-5
Broad Ripple (Indianapolis) open jury Wednesday February 8
It's well worth the effort to attend one to see what your and your
competition's images look like. And you don't need to apply to attend
an open jury. Please notify me if you know of any other open juries.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
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Replies
I also attended the jury although I didn't enter. I arrived during ceramics and stayed through the end of the jewelry category. It was a very educational experience They were doing 30 seconds per entry, but since they were running so late they decided to change it to 20 seconds at the beginning of one of the categories. Also at some point I am positive I heard the guy who was timing it say something to the effect that they were doing the Zapp recommended order and that was by order received. Maybe they screwed up and thought they were doing it by order received by really did it by alphabetical order. I didn't see the painting or photography, but I was impressed by the quality of the jewelry, especially the metalwork category. I expected to see a few really crappy entries, but I really didn't. I did see some crappy booth shots though. It made me think maybe a booth shot might be the difference between whether someone gets in or not. In the end, I figured there were so many good ones it's pretty much a crap shoot.
Whether or not something will sell is a criteria we do not ask our jurors to consider.
Thanks for clarifying that,
Best Regards,
Robert
Well, this is my 3rd attempt to respond to this blog. I keep doing something and lose the whole thing. Hopefull, 3rd time's the charm.
I also attended part of the BRAF jurying process and it was really interesting. I didn't enter the show, but wanted to see how it was done. If I had entered, my application would have gone into the "Other Jewelry" category, so I went to that part. As mentioned before, 24 minutes were scheduled for the 47 entries. I forgot to ask how many Jewelry artists were going to be accepted, and how many from each of the Jewelry catagories, or what the percentage of Jewelry artists would be included.
I counted one, one thousand, etc., during the initial run-through of the 47 images. It seemed to be about 1 each second or two. When they went back and went through them again, I didn't count or time them, but I kept a tally of what kinds of jewelry were in the "Other Jewelry" catagory and it seemed that I just had time to identify (or hear from the artist's statement) what type of jewelry it was, and make my tally mark before they moved to the next entry. It seemed about 15=20 seconds.
Jewelry people: There was a LOT of color in these entries, ie brightly colored glass, fused and lampwork, polymer clay, seed beads, resin, stones in wire, etc. I really was quite surprised since when I walk the shows, I don't register so much color.
When I looked at the jurors (separated from the public by several rows of chairs), I saw a laptop for each juror. Their photos were linear (4 in a row) and appeared to move along with the big projection. Patrick told me that the jurors were rating each entry on a scale of 1 to 7, omitting the number 4. They were looking for uniqueness, creativity and craftsmanship. The jury represented art fair participants, buyers, board members, and arts professionals. The booth pictures were NOT scored separately. If the booth shot was omitted, or if the artist's name was visible at all, the jurors were supposed to deduct 2 points
All in all, it was a really interesting experience.
Image quality seems to be the key in the jury. How to mix unique and sellable I don't know.
We ask ZAPP to arrange ours in order of "received by date" so I don't think the alphabetical applies to BRAF. I'll look into it and if that was the case make sure to change it for next year. I did email WESTAF and request "by order received" beforehand.
We allot 30 seconds per entry. We also run through each category beforehand at a much quicker pace to give the jurors an idea of the overall selection.
Keep the statement simple and not too technical. Our jurors tend to be visual people so to speak.
Patrick;
I sent my app in almost two weeks prior to the deadline. Since Wallis and Wermuth were the last to be viewed, Berman was second, it would suggest the alphabetical default was left in place.
As an additional suggestion, it might be a good idea to judge the categories with the largest numbers first to help prevent visual fatigue on the judges part. By the end of the day, there is going to be visual overload from the sheer number of entries to be viewed.
The "sellable" criteria is a tough one and this has been the subject of many private discussions regarding BRAF. I was in the show for at least 12 years in the 80's and 90's, and had participated one time when the fair was held on the parking lot over the canal. That goes back a ways ;-) The concern is that this is a nebulous concept and needs some clarity. I understand the desire for it, as this is your major fund raiser, and the intent is for patrons to be able to leave the fair with something they purchase rather than the event turn into a dog stroll and look at the artists for entertainment. When people buy something at an event like this, it in effect creates the atmosphere where there is a draw to return and that also ripples outward and draws others to the show to buy something. This in turn translates to creating a draw for the show and higher ticket sales for the gate. Seems fair enough :-)
From my standpoint, and others also, knowing what the "sellable" criteria encompasses, would allow a better basis to choose judging images. The last year I was in BRAF was the highest sales show I had done in 13 years, so that would imply the work was sellable or at least was sellable at one time. Time does move on and the artist who doesn't will find themselves left behind and no customers. Is there a specific demographic you're looking at as a typical attendee? Knowing that could affect choice of images to submit. What level of work as an example, high end gallery work, lower on the pyramid, middle of the road? A matter of subjective taste of the customer enters into all this, and an issue would be having a diversity of work available to all.
Hi Patrick,
I applied at the last minute but my images came up second in my category so I'm sure alphabetical was somehow chosen for the image order, or was the default setting and not changed.
As a show director, I think image order choices are in a drop down box in your back end interface, like the amount of characters in the artist statement. I'm not sure if emailing ZAPP would effect what you can choose but I'm sure Leah can tell you. My question to ZAPP would be what is the default choice in the image order box. For years I've asked them to either make it by application submission date and time or putting a simple "choose one" text in the box, forcing you to make a choice when you're setting up your application.
Thanks for participating in this thread. Artists always appreciate it when they can see what's happening from the show directors side of the issues.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
When they sent the confirmation it said alphabetical. I emailed Leah to ask for order received and she said it would be taken care of and that the alpha must have been a typo because order received was what she had for us. Seeing that must not have been what happened I'll make a note to double check next year.
Also, to clarify my earlier comments we started at 30 seconds until the jurors warmed up. This did set us behind about an hour - please do remember our schedule is just an estimate not a true schedule. Once they were warmed up we moved to 20-25 seconds. We ended up finishing the jury 30 minutes or so later than scheduled.
Thanks for the feedback!
Larry- The St. Louis Art Fair is holding a mock jury where past judges will critique the images. Deadline to submit images is Feb. 17th, but I think anyone can attend.
It will be held Sat. Feb. 25th at 9:00 am at the Regional Arts commission 6128 Delmar Blvd. St.louis, MO 63112.
I just sent in my application (on Zapp) yesterday. I am curious to see how this whole thing goes. Is it going to be just like a real jury process or is it going to be more like a workshop? I am hoping the latter as I sent in two different types of images in the same entry to see which would be better for applications.
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