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The La Quinta Art Festival ZAPP Monitor Jury |
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The Jurors
Separate jurors for each medium were chosen because of their expertise in
that particular medium. There were five jurors, of which three were
artists and the other two were educators or gallery owners. The show chose
the artist jurors from the previous years show based on the quality of
their work and their ethics. |
The Jury Process
La Quinta chose to do their jurying with the jurors at home being able to
log onto a password protected section of the ZAPP web site. They were only
able to see the medium that they were jurying. The show had the ability to
log in at any time to see how far the jurors had gotten in their scoring.
Letting the jurors remain at home gave the show a higher caliber of jurors
than if they had to settle on only those who could make the trip. They had
three days to jury, mid week so it didn’t interfere with artists show
schedules. La Quinta made sure there were people standing by to answer the
phone if the jurors had any questions. Before they started, the show
questioned each juror about their computers to make sure they each had at
least a nineteen-inch monitor. |
| They used a template that showed thumbnails, artist
statement and scoring, but encouraged the jurors to click on the
thumbnails to enlarge the images to the 700 square pixel size to evaluate
the art. |
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ZAPP monitor jury template similar to the one used by La
Quinta |
| Unlike a 15 second per artist jury where if you have a
question, blink or sneeze, you stand a chance of missing something, in
this format you always had the option to go back through and change a
score if you felt that you made a mistake anytime in the three days. |
| The final criteria was a question that the La Quinta show
adapted from the Sausalito show, and this only applied to artist jurors.
“Would you like to have this person next to or across from you. Would you
be proud to have this person as a neighbor?” |
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Tips from jurying a few different art shows |
Wearable fiber
At issue is the jury slide photographer who uses the same models for
different artists. It’s confusing to the jury because they don’t know if
the same artist is applying more than once. |
Multiple applications with the same booth slide
One artist applied twice in the same medium, twenty seconds apart with
different art shots but the same booth shot. Because the applications were
submitted so close together, the two sets of artist’s slides came up back
to back. Having the same booth image appeared confusing. |
Jewelry
Though you can’t see the actual work in a jewelers booth, do the pictures
hanging in the back of the booth have anything at all to do with the
pictures of the work that you just looked at. And I recommend that if it’s
not a picture that you’re using for a jury image, that it’s part of the
same cohesive body of work. It’s an opportunity show a few additional
images of your work to the jury. |
Cohesive body of work
One thing that keeps people out of the top show is not having a cohesive
body of work that was made at the same time. Some people try to put in
everything that they do. They need to put in four or five pieces that look
like the same artist made them at the same time. If there are different
backgrounds, jurors can be confused. Did they make one piece a year or
have they used four different photographers. And if they don’t have a
professionally taken booth shot, it doesn’t work. The booth needs to have
the same stuff in it. It can’t be, “this is my new work but this is my
booth shot from five years ago.” |
Professional photography and image prep
Anyone who thinks that they can photograph their own jury slides has
almost no chance of getting into the top shows. It’s not how good those
slides look to you or how good a job you did, it’s how good they look
compared to everyone else’s slides. And if everybody else is having their
images post processed to make the image quality look perfect, it’s apples
to apples and a level playing field. Any other thing is apples to oranges
and the oranges aren’t getting in. |
Summary
That cohesive body of work and having your slides properly photographed
and properly prepped. It’s safe to say that there aren’t many artists out
there that can do it all themselves and get into the best shows
consistently. You have to have good work, good slides and a good marketing
look. |
| I prefer the La Quinta’s three day jury
process because you can look over your results and feel confidant about it
and not be stuck on the ten or fifteen second thing. Jurying like this
lends itself to a higher quality of exhibitor. I commend the La Quinta Art
Festival for their visionary approach to the whole process. And they are
one of the few shows that give out the jury score to any artist that
contacts the show. |
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The artist who let me do this
interview prefers to remain anonymous |
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