What's a Booth Shot?
Prior to Cherry Creek closing last November, I received an e-mail from someone asking me to define a booth shot. He had 40 photographs in a newly created profile on ZAPP and wanted to apply to Cherry Creek. I explained that it was a picture of your display set up at an art show and if there was no booth slide available, he could still apply in the emerging artist category. His response was that he had just graduated from art school and would change his application to the emerging artist category. As a follow up, he just e-mailed me the other day asking about which canopy to buy. It seems that he did get into a show (not Cherry Creek) and now needed to purchase display equipment.

ZAPPism
definition - anything that doesn't make sense relative to digital jurying. I've now included a few ZAPPisms in my seminar.

ZAPPism Example
I received a call from an artist who is a painter who paints on porcelain, not canvas or paper. He is very clear about the process in his artist statement and individual art image descriptions. He had applied to a show in the painting category and the show moved his application to the ceramics category, and he was wait listed. Problem is that if he does the show in ceramics category he would be considered buy/sell. A follow up. The artist contacted the show and explained that if he were called off the wait list it wouldn't be fair to an artist who actually worked in ceramics. He feels that he did the right thing. What do you think?

NAIA Coconut Grove Sales Survey
The artist survey about their sales is now available to download (as a PDF) from the NAIA web site. It also includes a lot of quotes from artists about the show:
http://naia-artists.org/work/surveys.htm?

A Great Art Show Success Story
Mark Zurek, photographer/digital artist had the show of a lifetime at Fort Worth last month. You can read about his experience, including his list of five things he did wrong when he started out doing shows just three short years ago:

Art Show Deadlines
Connie Mettler, director of Arts Beats and Eats has extended her deadline for submission. Here are her thoughts on the subject of art show deadlines.
"Most of you have been in this business for some time, but I've got to say, that for many, many years I believed that the DEADLINE on an application was strictly a "drop dead deadline," miss the deadline, you were out of luck. I am sure this is true still for only a handful of shows. More and more I hear from show directors that the deadline isn't the deadline until the projectors (or the rokus) are rolling. In addition, these days many shows are not filling their events by the time of the jurying and often have spaces long past jury time. So, in case you have never heard this before, if you missed a deadline make a phone call. Artists are the constituency of art fairs, without you they do not exist. Most art fair organizers are glad to talk to you."
http://www.artsbeatseats.com

EZUp in the Snow
Emmett Hollander provided a few pictures from the Tulip Festival Street Fair in Mount Vernon, WA

What does ZAPP and College Applications have in common?
In a parallel to what's happening with ZAPP with the art shows getting more applications, online applications are making admissions into Colleges more difficult. Someone posted about this to my Photography forum recently. Because of a universal online application used by over 300 schools called "Common Application," High School students are now applying to up to 20 universities, where they may have only applied to about five to eight in the past. Here's an article about it: http://www.collegeboard.com/parents/apply/narrow-college-list/150489.html

Here's a quote from a 2006 USA Today article:
"Admissions deans say the ease of applying online, along with the growing popularity of the Common Application — a standardized form now used even by many brand-name institutions — are fueling the increase. The number of Common Applications filed online has skyrocketed from just under 41,000 in 2000-01 to a predicted 700,000 this year." Can that be where art show applications are headed?

More Juror Interviews
I have three more juror interviews on my web site. Two from artists and one from a gallery owner. They are now listed on this page with the newest interviews at the top:

Improving the System
Suggestions on improving the digital jury systems. I have a page of suggestions I've made to ZAPP on how to improve the system. If you're interested in my thoughts on the process, you can read it on this page.

Juried Art Services image update follow up
The image requirement wording change for Juried Art Services I mentioned last month shouldn't make anyone run out and change their images, which some artists have contacted me about. No matter what size is uploaded (between 1400 and 2000 pixels long dimension) the jurors only will see the images at 700 pixels long dimension, exactly the same as they've always done since the Smithsonian Craft Show started using JAS years ago.

Coconut Grove sales figures
Coconut Grove reported to the Miami Herald that between six and eight million dollars worth of art was sold at the 2008 show, which they claim was about the same as was sold in 2007. At 325 booths, that would be an average of about $18,000 per booth at the low end. The problem with this number is that a great many artists reported not making any sales or just barely making expenses. To counter this claim of artists riches, NAIA has created an anonymous survey and sent out an e-mail to all artists who have done the show since 2006. If you've exhibited at the Grove in the past three years and have not received the e-mail about the survey, please let me know and I'll provide a link. This is an important survey because if shows think that the artists are really making that much money, they feel justified in continuing to raise their booth fee. The booth fee for Coconut Grove went up $100 in 2008 from the year before.

ZAPP web site off line
On Sunday evening March 2nd, the ZAPP web site was unavailable. If you tried to visit the site that evening your browser may have "cached" the page saying it was down for maintenance and for the next few days it kept showing you the same down for maintenance page each time you went back. The way a browser works is that it downloads web pages (files and images) to a folder called "cache" on your computer and loads the page from your local folder to save bandwidth and time. A number of artists contacted me during that week saying that they were still unable to access the ZAPP site. The solution was to reload or refresh the page or to clear your temporary internet files. Both would force your browser to go to the server and reload the page again. A third solution would be to try an alternate browser.

Modifying a ZAPP application after submission
Most artists know that Juried Art Services lets you tinker endlessly with your application up until the closing date. There is also a way to make changes in a ZAPP application once submitted but it's a little more complicated. You need to contact the show (I suggest telephone) and ask them to set your application back to incomplete so you can make changes before submitting it again without having to pay an additional jury fee. This only works up until the deadline and you are at the mercy of the show, but I've never heard of a show turning down an artist's request to make changes.

More from Broad Ripple.
They received 764 applications their first year with ZAPP, which is up 200 from last year. But the most interesting statistic is that 42% of the applications were from artists who had never applied before.

Open Jury
St James Court will be holding an open jury on March 29-30. Call 502-635-1842 for more information. If you hear of any other shows holding open juries, please let me know.

Tips from a La Quinta juror
Another in my continuing series of interviews with jurors. I was fortunate to be able to speak to a Juror from La Quinta. It's interesting to read about how the jurors juried only one category, at home, and are given three days to complete their scoring. Could this be the future of ZAPP?

Juried Art Services new image requirement wording Nothing to worry about. Though they raised the upper limit (to 2000 pixels) of what size can be submitted, they are going to continue accepting images prepared at 1400 pixels long dimension as they've been accepting for the past few years. The wording has been simplified at my request. "Select an image file: JPG Files Only (.jpg or .jpeg). Images should be between 1400 pixels and 2000 pixels longest dimension at 300PPI (pixels per inch). 1920x1920 pixel images are also acceptable."

When previewing your image choices on a Juried Art Services application, make sure to pay attention to the position of the images on the preview screen. I started an application for Sausalito to do screen captures for my web site and noticed that it's two over two with the booth image on a separate page. Click here to see how the jurors for shows using Juried Art Services see the images

Does your booth slide look like it works with your individual art images.
From an artist who observed the Broad Ripple jury: During the Photography category there was a good deal of confusion because one applicant had submitted three black and white landscape photos and a booth image with European color photos. In the initial run through, the staff even flipped around to another booth shot that seemed to "fit". But when they did the second round where they actually scored, they realized the color booth went with the black and white landscapes. Something to keep in mind: make sure your booth image fits with your submitted artwork!

Shows posting images of accepted artists To add to the list I previously sent out, Coconut Grove includes one image for each artist:

Listing of shows on ZAPP
Finally ZAPP listened to my complaints about the ways shows list themselves. They are now listed by the actual name of the show. No more 5th annual whatever festival following 57th Street. With over 150 shows, it's now easier to find a specific show on the page.

Ever wonder what it's like to be a juror? Mary Jane Cross was a juror for the 2007 Long's Park show and she offers some insight into what a juror thinks about:
Interview with a Long's Park juror
Two things she stressed were the amount of time they had to look at the images and the short (100 character) artist statement.

Shows posting images of accepted artists
Lafayette Round the Fountain posts the entire set of images (including the booth) of accepted artists:
http://www.roundthefountain.org/2007_preview.htm

Here are a few more:
Smithsonian Craft Show
http://smithsoniancraftshow.org/indexmain.asp
Philadelphia Craft Show
http://pmacraftshow.org/artists

If you know of an art show web site that allows you to view the images of the accepted artists, please send me a link.

Jury details and grandfathered shows continued
Bayou City sent out an e-mail to all artists that applied: "In addition to representatives from the Art Colony Board, we are please to inform you that your work will be reviewed by our invited panel", and then listed the jurors names. I wonder if they give their board members the same scoring weight as their jurors. Well, at least they tell you what's going on.

Sausalito, one of the top rated art shows in the country, is now taking applications through Juried Art Services.

Defining the booth slide.
I've created a web page that helps artists understand what a booth slide is. I'm looking for examples of booth slides in all different mediums (except photography) to be used as examples. Names will not be used. If you would be willing to let me use your booth picture, or even have an old booth jury slide you can send me, please let me know.

Jury details and grandfathered shows continued.
57th Street - "Approximately 75 new artists will be invited to exhibit. The remaining 200 spots are filled by returning artists." Old Town - 20% of the spaces will be filled by new artists

Last chance.
If you might be interested in exhibiting at Ann Arbor, now would be the time to join the Michigan Guild. Exhibiting members of The Guild are tenured, and only need to jury once every three years to maintain their space in the Ann Arbor show. In the past that meant that it took many years for new associate members to rise to exhibiting status. Now that is all changing. Starting in January 2008 Associate Members will no longer be allowed to join, and the new Artist Members will not be given spaces in the show until all the Associate Members have been offered exhibiting status. I know this may sound complicated, but the bottom line is that if you join now there is an excellent chance that you will be a tenured member in a few years. After the first of the year that opportunity will be lost. And being able to count on being in a show like the Ann Arbor Summer Art Show is worth a lot. For a sign up form and more information go to the Guild’s web site: http://theguild.org

Look for the Michigan Guild to start jurying through Juried Art Services in 2008.

The key to using any of these products is the light from the bulbs is diffused through white Plexiglas or white nylon.
My relevant companion article on how to set and use your digital camera

You may have applied to Rittenhouse Square last year using Juried Art Services. This year they are doing their own digital jurying and are asking for ZAPP formatted images on a CD with a postmark deadline of January 4th. You can download their application in PDF format from:
http://www.rittenhousesquarefineartshow.org

If I had known about it, I would have written about it sooner. Coconut Grove has an open jury each year around the end of September. I've been told that they jury two dimensional and three dimensional work on separate days with different jurors, and for those artists attending, they allow you to speak to the jurors on the day their work isn't being shown.

If you know of any other shows that have open juries, please let me know so I can write about it here.

ZAPP tip
Since art shows started using ZAPP, artists have wondered about the order their images were seen by the jurors within their medium. In the course of a recent discussion about image order on the ZAPP forum, this reply was posted by Lara Turner: The ZAPP software enables three distinct options for show administrators to "order" artist submissions in their panel process: (1) by the date that the application was received (changing an application from received to incomplete will not change the application received date as that is logged when the show first receives the application), (2) by the artist's last name or (3) by artist ID. The first two options are self-explanatory; the artist ID option presents submissions to the jury in a completely random order (the software uses the ID number to "randomize" the ordering of results). In response to your specific question about whether there is a default setting, a show must choose one of these options; we prefer not to have any "defaults". So from my perspective, all shows should use application received date for the order to be fairest.

Watching a ZAPP Jury
I've previously posted about how important it is to see your images projected in a jury room. I received this e-mail from an artist client the other day: I was invited to view the preliminary run through for Ft Myers the day before the jury started. All I can say is it was amazing. As long as your images are done right using all the image area and color punch they are incredible to see. Much better than what a slide projector does. My images look exactly like my artwork and jumped right off the wall. If anyone has a chance to see their art work projected like the judges do, you do learn a lot!!! Thanks for all your help, it's much appreciated!!!

Reminder.
Fort Worth is having an open jury with a preview Friday night cocktail party on November 9th - 11th. If you're interested in attending, I'm looking for a (male) roommate. I did it last year with two other photographers and we spent the entire time analyzing the jury process and how the images looked.

Another open jury.
I just did a seminar at the Indianapolis Art center. Broad Ripple will be holding an open ZAPP jury and you'll be able to see all the images projected. Look for their jury dates to be held early next year when they announce that their application is open. And though they're going to be using ZAPP, they've also said that they want to give the artists their jury scores like they've done in the past.

20-30% more applications
The latest issue of Sunshine Artist quoted the director of the Broad Ripple Art Show saying that they were told that they would get 20-30% more applications. I have yet to find out who gave them that figure, but it confirms everything we've suspected. Therefore I can't stress how important the quality of your jury images are.

Deadlines
I now have only the current month's closing dates on my home page and have moved the long list of art show closing dates to an internal page.

Jury Slide Photography
If you're in a bind and need to have work photographed to meet a deadline, give me a call. 800-350-9289. Here are a few examples of jury slide photography I've done recently.

ZAPP Jury Tip
ZAPP waiting lists are better than a waiting list for a show still using slides. A top 20 show in it's first year with ZAPP went through more than half it's 50 artist waiting list on the day the acceptances were sent out. By the time the show came around, they had expired their waiting list and were calling local artists who had scored high but had not made the waiting list.

ZAPP Jury Tip
In October I went to the Fort Worth ZAPP jury to see how the images projected five across. I wrote about it for my web site

ZAPP Jury Tip
I try to keep an updated list of closing dates for all shows using either ZAPP or JAS on the home page of my web site:

Last week I was the key note speaker for the Best of Missouri Hands annual artist conference. My next seminar will be at the Pensacola Museum of Art in June. If you know of an art show or artist organization that can benefit from the information I share, please ask them to have me do a seminar.

Art Shows asking for digital images not using ZAPP or Juried Art Services. There is an ongoing trend for shows to create their own digital jury system, asking for non standard image requirements. When I hear about shows asking for digital images, I make an effort to contact the show and ask them to please accept ZAPP formatted images because it's now considered a standard size (1920x1920) that most artists already have. I have an article about it with image viewing suggestions on my web site:

Please contact any show asking for non standard size images and suggest they read the information. This is especially true for any show not asking for square images, which is fair for artists because it shows both horizontal and vertical images equal in size. If I've worked on your images, I've provided a CD of the files I've prepared. You may need those image files now to apply to shows asking for digital submissions like I've mentioned above. If you can't find that CD or need a duplicate, contact me and I'll provide one again for a minimal fee from my back up files. Also, for those shows not asking for ZAPP format images, I can easily prepare your images to meet any show requirement and provide a CD.

The past year has brought a number of changes to the art shows, especially those that have started jurying digitally. More artists have been applying because of the ease of the online application, which is making for more competition. My position has always been that it's about the images. Just because it's easy to apply doesn't make it any easier to get accepted. The images of your artwork are all you have that sets you apart from the other applicants.

What's better than a great jury image? A set of great jury images that work well together in your overall presentation. To that end, I'm offering a new service for three-dimensional artists. High end retouching to take out hot spots on highly reflective surfaces and dropping the images onto a neutral background that accents all the pieces uniformly. This can take your presentation to a new level. Examples can be seen on this page of my web site.

A new service I'm offering two-dimensional artists is the ability to scan oversize art up to 12x17 inches, at high enough resolution to have more detailed digital jury images than if the work had been photographed either digitally or with film. This is great for scanning etchings, 11x14 photographs or small paintings. There is a testimonial on my digital imaging services page:

Customer service. If you've worked with me, you know the level of customer service that I provide. I've helped hundreds of artists get through the online application process for both ZAPP and Juried Art Services. Here's an interesting antidote. A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from an artist client at 4:45 on a Friday afternoon, asking if she could get 35mm slides from her digital files for a Monday postmark deadline. I immediately called IPrintFromHome to see if they were working on Saturday, formatted her full size digital files for 35mm slides and uploaded them. The artist had the 35mm slides in her hand by 3:00 Monday afternoon.

This is a service I've been offering since I started scanning jury slides. If you need 35mm slides from your improved digital files, I can format them for you and upload the files. If you want to contact IPrintFromHome, there is a link on my digital files to 35mm slides instruction page:

Because of the depth of information on BermanGraphics, I've created a new web site called www.ZAPPhelp.com where you can easily find links to all the digital jury information on BermanGraphics.

The American Craft Council has moved their deadline up by a month to the end of July. Don't wait until the last minute if you have new images you want me to work on, or want to use my high end retouching services to improve your jury presentation.

I can prepare your digital jury images for ZAPP, Juried Art Services, 35mm slides and any other image format requirement, including preparing a CD for you to submit for those few shows asking for one.