Join me in the gallery until 6pm today, again on Wednesday evening and next Sunday as well. On Broad Street in Nevada City, CA
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
If you are an artist, you are probably in the throes of not only doing shows but also applying to shows for next year and receiving rejected/wait listed/accepted emails for shows that are way down the pike. The jury process is a bit of a mystery to us all... we work hard to make beautiful pieces, have them professionally photographed, and then we upload them to Zapp or send them to the show in some other way and we wait. We sometimes stress about needing new jury images, worried that jurors will remember that we've sent the same group of images for a couple of years in a row. Somehow we think fresher might capture their eye or make them think "wow! that person is doing something different!".
Well, after discussing the process with my friend Daryl Thetford, who was selected to be on the jury for Des Moines this year, and also emailing about it with his wife Dana Lise Shavin, and after the many discussions I had with artists after jurying the Plaza Art Fair... the fact remains that it's a totally rustic, rudimentary process. It's really based on what the jurors like. It's all gut instinct. Do the images look good? Do they grab you? They should flash on the screen and make you think wow! cool! or some other one-word positive expression that doesn't even come close to "huh?" because rarely is there time in a big jury to really talk about what's being done in the artwork or the process involved to do it.
The tips Daryl and I discussed are that simple images are better. They need to be easy to read. They need to read as a group; there should be some connecting feature that doesn't make them redundant. Maybe each image has red in it, or there are all rings, or each piece has a pearl, or they are all birds... whatever theme seems to connect the images at a quick glance. We all get concerned that the judges will pigeon-hole us or single us out during the show by saying "I thought you only made rings" as they walk by... really, they probably won't quite remember. And, if you are allowed to submit a booth shot, that's what a booth shot can do for you -- not only does a booth shot help to convey your image and branding and personality at a show, but it can also show that you do a variety of work and have plenty of pieces to keep your "store" full and merchandised throughout the show. Daryl and I both found that booth shots could truly make or break a candidate if it came down to discussing a category that had too many artists in it (after the big round of jurying was done). Make sure you have a great, accurate booth shot, but more importantly, make sure you have a beautifully designed booth! We were not judging the quality of the booth shot images, but more analyzing the way the work was presented, the art was hung, the scale and number of pieces available... the overall aesthetic of the shopping and display environment created.
Join me in the gallery until 6pm today, again on Wednesday evening and next Sunday as well. On Broad Street in Nevada City, CA
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Sadly I missed "Capitalism: A Love Story" in the theaters, but based on what types of conversations it's stirring up, I'm excited to see it. My landlady here in fairy land sent an email to me that Michael Moore wrote up due to the number of times people said... hey, this move is great, but what can we actually DO? He narrowed it down to 15 action items, which I still found totally daunting.
I read through them and found the things that really spoke to me, and I'm hanging on to the email so I can tackle more items as I digest others. One thing that I was already doing was slowing down, reading, getting enough sleep, surrounding myself with positive people... that was all kind of rolled into one item about taking care of yourself. The other part of that is that I'm participating in a CSA, specifically through Mountain Bounty Farm. This fits the bill of taking care of myself as well as supporting my local community. Being part of a community is one of the main reasons I wanted to move to a small town, and specifically why I chose Nevada City of all places... it's a very welcoming and active community.
The other action item that was so fascinating was his commentary on banking. Michael Moore thinks we should all pull out of banks who took bailout money. Of course my bank is on there... the list is so long, whose isn't? I was shocked to even find a small local bank from here on that list. But his email included a link to a site that helps you find a local credit union. That's one of the things I'm going to do next year... there's a credit union that I can join that's just a few miles from my house... maybe not as convenient as having an atm everywhere I go, but it will be nice to know I'm banking with someone who's not in it for profit, and if there is profit, we all share it.
The idea of joining in on things is ringing true for me. A CSA makes me feel part of the local farm community, a credit union will be great, and next I'm going to join the local co-op. Soon that may get me tackling some of the more political items on Michael Moore's agenda, but I have to take things one step at a time.
