Jurying Three Rivers 2013
Read my other juror interviews
About the booth
It was interesting to be on the juror’s side of the jurying process as opposed to the artist’s side. I found it to be very enlightening, because as an artist I wondered, why do they need a booth shot? Only having done indoor wholesale or retail shows recently, I assumed that people presented their work professionally. Well, I was (laughing) wrong.
I found that the booth shot made the biggest difference if I was on the fence about a given artist. Do I really like this body of work? Do I want it in the show or not? I would go through the four pictures and if I were undecided I could immediately make up my mind when seeing the booth shot, especially if it looked like they presented their work in a way that was appropriate for the body of work.
Booths are infinitely variable, depending on your vision of your artwork and how you think it should be presented, and what flatters your work the most. I think it’s important that your booth reflects your work. If you make very casual work, then your booth can have a more casual look. If you make very upscale, elegant work, your booth display needs to reflect that, so they look like they belong together. It’s very disconcerting when you see beautiful work in the jury shots but the booth looks like something the kids put together in the back yard when they were camping out. I was astonished at how poorly thought out some of the booths were. Some were just a couple of tables with table cloths thrown over them, and they weren’t even adjusted to look neat. They were sloppy looking and that bothered me.
I am impressed with how creative some artists are in the way they utilize the space in their booths; everything from the floor plans, the different floor coverings, the wall treatments, to the display props themselves; how varied they are! And for the artists who do it well, the booth comes across as part of their artwork. And I do think artists need to look at their booth as an extension of their artwork. I think it’s jarring to customers if your booth looks a certain way and your artwork doesn’t seem to belong in that particular booth.
You also need a good photograph of the booth. A big turn off for me was when there were people or an artist’s name banner in the booth shot. I’m sure that part of the directive was that no names appear in the booth shot and yet so many artists did include names
From the jurors’ standpoint, when I go to see a show, it makes me uncomfortable if the work on display in a booth doesn’t look like the work that was juried in; but I do understand that we artists need to bring a variety of price points to a show. I was disappointed that I didn’t see some of my choices, but I was only one of several jurors, and my opinion was bound to be out-voted at times!
As for buy/sell, screening it out is probably why a jeweler and other artists of different media were included on the jury. The artwork I chose was based on what I thought looked original and beautiful. I didn’t think anyone would actually be trying to slide buy/sell in with their jury images. I looked to see that the concept or style appeared to be done by the same artist.
How the jurors see the images
Larry Berman
The jurors for Three Rivers, like most of the art shows using ZAPP, view the jury images on computer monitors. The ZAPP monitor jury process is that the jurors see the images one after another, enlarged to the same size you see the images enlarged when you are logged into your own profile. That’s one image after another, the last being the booth image. The only time all five images are seen together is as small thumbnails on the page where you enter the jury score. This is opposed to the ZAPP projection process where the jurors would be in the same room with five projectors and five screens. Each set of images would be projected simultaneously and they would enter the scores on small laptops or net books. You can get an idea about how the monitor jury process works starting on this page.
