The jury results for the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Fair (WPSAF) were announced via email last night. They were accompanied by a long communication, detailing changes in the park and parking, setup, and the usual litany of obligations and deadlines. But they did one thing right, and that was including the number of applications and data broken down by media.
Briefly, there were 1015 applications, and 225 spots. Of those spots, 32 were pre-juried award winners from the 2011 show.
This chart shows the breakdown, by medium, with the number of applicants (blue), and the number of accepted artists (red). By far, the highest number of applications received was in the painting category, followed by jewelry and photography. No surprises there.
The makeup of the show is fairly even, as you'd expect. Painting, jewelry and photography have a higher proportion of exhibitors compared to fiber, wood and digital art. The next chart shows this breakdown.
Congratulations to those accepted for the show! And to those who will be sitting this one out, my condolences. Best of luck in the continuing rejection season.
Replies
If they want to keep the show fresh, I can understand that....I notice they have the same artists every year and some of those artists don't change their work much...
Some artists work is easy to spot,even in a jury line up without names....
How does that work with some patrons who won't buy from you the first time but will if you come back. Can't develope a following that way.Plus some want to see you come back,so as not to appear "fly by night and gone the next". I've had people tell me they won't buy from an artist who's new but will wait if they return....
Most shows tend to jury within a certain comfort zone, with styles and category mix. Based on my personal experience and opinion, most shows are about 20-25% new artists each year, with some of those replacing artists that have not reapplied, or gone on to other shows. So even with some churn, a show may appear to be the same old artists year after year. Add to that: artists tend to keep doing the shows they are comfortable with and can make a profit at. Again, the 80/20 rule in effect.
WPSAF, in previous years, had a separate category for watercolor. Nearly all accepted work in that category was traditional, representational work. There was more contemporary, abstract work in painting and mixed media, so I assumed I would have a better chance of being accepted with my abstract, watercolor collages in either mixed media or the painting category. Now, all paintings, including watercolor, is in one category. I like this much better because for a couple of years, I've been transitioning from watermedia based into oil/cold wax and have shown both mediums in my booth at the same time. FYI- I haven't applied to FL shows for a few years. Thanks, Jim, for your excellent work on tabulating this information for us in graphics. Very informational!
So that explains the large painting category, Ginny. Interesting on how the categories can make people like you who are experimenting and moving between media have to make these choices.
Some years back I remember the AA Street Art Fair would only let artists have one media in their booths, (and it was a powerhouse then) and if you wanted to show two media you had to buy two booths. So friends who did printmaking stayed with printmaking although they were also painting and really wanted to show both, but two booths was beyond their means, which then meant they didn't paint!
Hi Connie, I'm happy that the category change helps in some way. I'm a painter who often incorporates 2 or more media into my paintings. Mixed media and painting are separate categories. Do I truly have to separate out my artwork when submitting based on whether I used a small strip of paper or a bit of silver leaf within my abstract acrylic painting although the styles are the same? Based on the descriptions, yes, I do. So now my painting is lined up for selection with the assemblage and the collage artists.
It's for certain that we all will never be completely satisfied with the categories so I have settled into making two separate submissions and paying two separate jury fees and if accepted I split up my work and show up with either my Single Medium Paintings or my Paintings with Anything Else in Them, aka Mixed Media. I often feel as if I'm leaving some of my kids at home while the others get to go out for ice cream!
Yeah, I'm tapering off on Florida shows myself. I decided to skip January and February and stay home in the frozen North.
Winter Park is a good example of shows that do try to give the artists as much information as possible. Main St. Fort Worth just announced last week, and they also published the number of entries and number of acceptances. It does help to know your chances in your chosen medium(s) and which you might stand a better chance of getting accepted.
Ginny, hope we see you at some point this spring! I am going to Gasparilla and Winter Park so far. No Scottsdale for me (good luck Mark McK -- you should do well there). It's a hike in between -- I did that drive one winter and decided it was either or next time.
But we need this kind of information. So kudos to the shows that have listened to the artists and provided it.
Knowing now they let you in one year and then don't consider you for a couple more years will help me save money in jury fees. Wish I'd known that before,I wouldn't have applied again.
I'm sur ethey won't like it that we know now...Lol!
Michelle, that's not proven fact, merely hypothesis, conjecture and wishful thinking. It falls under the category of urban artist legends. I wouldn't take that particular statement as gospel. It merely seems as if some shows operate that way, but since the jury is supposed to be blind, it would be hard to blacklist any artists unless their work was very well known to the jury.
Jim is totally right on this, Michelle. Urban legend and some kind of wishful thinking. I stand by my statement that "they" are not out to get us, it is an objective system. Shows are looking for the best artists because they want to have great shows. Why would they reject someone who was there the year before for an arbitrary reason?
Devil's advocate here: one reason would be to keep the show "fresh". Rotating the artists and introducing a percentage of new artists every year benefits the show, the patrons and the artists, ultimately. Otherwise the customers get tired of seeing the same old tired work year after year. That would be one "non-arbitrary" reason.
However, in practice, it's tough to do, especially with shows that change the jury pool every year. A new jury won't be familiar with the work that has been presented in years past, unless they are very knowledgeable about the industry in general. Since there are no names associated with ZAPP jury applications, new jurors can't know who's work is who's, unless they happen to know that artist personally. So keeping previous artists out by jury isn't really feasible.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 6 Next