The Columbus Arts Festival is an A-tier show held in downtown Columbus, Ohio in early June. Their jury process is a two-day affair and is open to the public. Five paid jurors view projected artwork and booth images on five large screens, and each juror has a laptop where they can view thumbnail images and supporting information and mark their scores. Each year the show receives in the neighborhood of 1100-1200 applications.
Last year I attended Day 1, when the jury slogs through all of the image sets, seeing each artist's 5 images projected simultaneously. Last year the images were shown for just 3 seconds before switching to the next set. I'm still unclear how a juror could see each of the images, make a Yes-No-Maybe decision, and select their decision on their laptop all within 3 seconds, but time marched on and by the end of the day all the apps had been seen.
This year I attended Day 2. As an aside, due to time-wasting computer glitches on the first day, the last category -- painting -- still needed to go through round 1 so the day started with that leftover task. I noticed that this year each slide set was projected for about 5 seconds rather than 3, and from my perspective that extra time made a big and welcomed difference. It was much easier to really see and absorb the work.
On to Round 2. At the beginning of each category a staff member read the definition/requirements of the category (as listed in the prospectus) and gave both the number of original entries and the number of remaining entries after Day 1's jurying. In almost every case about half of the category remained for the second round.
This time the images were projected for about 10 seconds (what a luxury!) and the artist statement was read aloud. Although the jurors were permitted to discuss what they were seeing, they didn't do so. I had heard that in past years sometimes a juror would either advocate for a particular artist's work or try to dissuade others from accepting an artist, but I didn't see any of that. The jurors were instructed to assign a rating of 1-7 for each artist, with no 4, and with 7 being the best. Scores were not announced.
I noticed that there's definitely a difference from year-to-year in the overall flavor of the work being entered and also in the work each set of judges likes. Not sure what to do with that info, rather than to think that here's yet another area where luck plays a role in whether you're accepted or not. Who's to know who's applying, what they're entering and what the judges will put through?
Finally, if jurors noticed that an artist had entered in the wrong category -- presumably to get a better shot at acceptance or perhaps purely by mistake -- the artist was disqualified. They were not reassigned to the appropriate category and juried there. The artist statement (or "techniques and materials") is the giveaway. If you're in mixed media, you'd better mention materials in several mediums as it's not always obvious by looking at the image.
The second round took about 3.5 hours to jury 500 +/- applications.
Comments
Karen, I echo the thanks! I've been to an open jurying and I still don't know all of the ins and outs. It is a problem to me the amount of money paid for the jury process (ie 1100-1200 applicants X $30. give or take), and there still is only time for 10 seconds per entry? I just don't get it. Since that's the way it's done, I just have to get over it!!!! This particular jury at least had 5 jurors. Not quite so heavily weighted in one person's favor. Best of luck on getting in. Please let us know how it turns out for you!
Karen, VERY helpful info! Thanks so much for passing this along. From a personal perspective, this is good news for me with my "punchy", vibrant, KISS [keep it simple stupid] imagery! ;-)
I believe I was there for 7 hours day one. And 4 hours day 2. Who knows how much behind the scenes work there was to get to that point. I know after the computer glitch, one GCAC staff spent over 3 hours after the jury trying to fix it. You do have to take into account the staff of the Greater Columbus Arts Council, renting the zapp system, the hotel fees to use their room, and I'm sure a bunch of other stuff I'm not aware of.
I hate paying thousands for jury fees a year too, but at least Columbus has an open jury and is more transparent than most shows. Who knows really if one director is just pocketing all those app fees and choosing who he likes. At least we see a bit behind the magic curtain here.
In considering all the info from the post and from the comments, the first problem I see is in the jury changing the time viewed during a single session is just wrong. By this I mean I believe that it is true but it is just wrong, dishonest, and unfair of the jury to give some applicants [however random] more time while others got less.
Then there is the contention that the process takes too long... let's do some math...
Round 1: 1200 apps x 5 seconds each = 6000 seconds = 100 minutes = 1.67 hours. Let's play fairly and round this session up to 2 hours to account for any lags or time used for file-finding on the computer, etc. Now let's increase it by 1.5x just in case something else went wrong = 3 hours. So, 3 hours for Round 1 and that's a wrap for today's work!
Round 2: 600 apps (let's say 800 to be safe) 800 apps x 10 seconds = 8000 seconds = 133.33 minutes = 2.22 hours. Again, round up to 3 hours and apply a 1.5 factor and we get 4.5 hours. So, 4.5 hours for Round 2 and that's all for today! This very conservative estimate leaves 7.5 hours spread over 2 days... 3 hours and 45 minutes a day.
Now the dollars: 1200 apps x $40 = $48,000. Five jurors x 7.5 hours = 37.5 juror/hours = $1280.00 per hour to wrap this jury! Yes, I know the juror wages are not the only expense, but I think the show is making plenty enough on jury fees to be able to require jurors to take a few more seconds in the process... even if the stipend needs to increase some.
--Chris
I agree, the jurors from year to year make a huge difference. Last year I was shocked at some of the art that made it through to round 2 and some great art that was dismissed. This year I was much more on the same page as the jurors, but then again, that is just a matter of my opinion vs the jurors opinions.
All in all, there were a ton of applications and only about 20% could be chosen, so no matter what there will be great artists who unfortunately don't make the cut. I always enjoy going to the jury. Praying to get in again this year!!!
Thanks for that laugh-out-loud! Almost choked on my coffee.
Heh, that shoots down my new work with a photo and 10-15 lines of poetry to go with it :-(
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