“Why didn’t the jury pick me?” (Some thoughts on this probing question.)

There are, of course, many reasons why we don’t get selected by the juries of arts festivals. Many of these are subjective (not what the jury was looking for, it was before lunch and they were hungry, it was after lunch and they were sleepy, yours was the last images to be judged, etc, etc.). These reasons are not ones that you can have a lot of control over and are at the mercy of ‘luck of the draw’. But, there are two areas that I noticed last year that caused otherwise good artists to be rejected. The first is the booth slide (or image, in this digital age). Many artists will hire a professional photographer to shoot their work (because they are not very talented with a camera themselves) and then they will take that lack of talent with the camera and photograph their booth! So the jury sees these wonderful images of the work and then are dismayed when they get to the booth. In major shows your booth can account for 30% of your score (even though it is only 20% of your images). Shows that have a reputation for the fine arts and fine crafts also want to see fine booths. When you are displaying your work with other artists, the public sees the show as a single experience and if there are booths that look amateurish then the whole show begins to look that way to the spectators. This is why the jurors will put such a high value on how you are presenting your work because it will reflect strongly on the show as a whole.

The second, and more subtle, thing that I saw was the sharpness of the digital images. I’m not sure the jurors were consciously aware of the way that some images were ’soft’ to the focus but as a photographer I did see it. It may seem minor but when your score hangs in the balance, every edge you have may help. I am not going into a long dissertation on how to sharpen digital images but will merely say that ALL digital images need a little sharpening (maybe a little more than a little). Do some research on the image software that you are using and learn a bit about sharpening or find a 13 year old computer whiz and have them do it!
I hope this info is useful but remember that the sharpest images, with the best booth shot that is of art that the jury is not looking for, still won’t get in. (No one said life is fair…..)

How the jury works

Based on a recent conversation with an artist who was concerned that somehow my personal tastes in art would influence how the artists would be picked for the show, let me clarify my position. First of all, I am NOT on the jury and my juries are picked, not because they have the same tastes in art as I do but rather for their expertise in the arts. When the jury process takes place, they are instructed by me to pick the best of every style in every genre, and not to be picking what they personally like. We cannot show the public the diversity of the arts in Colorado if all of the artists were what I would buy or what the jury would buy for our personal collections. Quite frankly, that could be a bit boring (especially if it were only my tastes in art). Personally I have always enjoyed the festivals around the country that covered such a broad spectrum of work in each of the categories that I found myself anxious to see the next booth (and the next, etc) because of the inspiration that kind of diversity breeds in all of us. It saddens me when I hear that artists feel they need to alter their style or creativity in order to try to get into a major show since they feel that the show is looking for a certain type of art. I feel strongly that the shows should not be dictating (either directly or indirectly) the creativity of the artists, but rather the creativity of the artists should dictate the style of the show.