Last night I spent a few hours watching and reading the results of the mock jury from St. Louis that is posted on Zapp.
It was both eye opening and maddening. I'm wondering if anyone else has watched it and had the same take-aways that I did.
Most of the comments I focused on were related to the booth photos. I understand the importance of having a good setup, everything straight and tidy, good lighting, etc. But the concerns from the jurors about every little thing was so disappointing. They don't like any of the booth photos taken on grass, even if there is a nice rug covering most of the grass - still too distracting. And if the booth is on pavement, there shouldn't be any seams/cracks in the pavement - also a distraction. One of the photos was of a booth using white mesh panels. A juror was critical of the lower stabar and straps that tighten up the mesh wall, suggesting the artist should have eliminated those bars and straps for the booth photo. First of all, you can't secure mesh walls without using those bars and straps, so that is just not feasable. Secondly, and more importantly, this supports my suspicion that it really doesn't matter what your booth looks like when you get to a fair and set it up. If this juror is suggesting that you remove a critical piece of your tent structure for the sake of the jury photo, knowing full well that those parts will be utilized at the actual fair if/when you get in, I give up.
Another issue for me was the comments about framed art. They criticized several booths for having all of their art in slim black frames - unimaginative, and off-putting to anyone who doesn't like black frames. And one of the artists submitted nice jury photos of 2-D art on canvas with just the painted image in the photo, but in the booth shot you could see many of the pieces were in floating frames. They were critical of the fact that the frames weren't included in the images of the art. I have read time and again that you shouldn't include the frame in the photo unless it was an integral part of the painting.
The last thing that bugged me was their constant dismay at the lack of descriptions included for each image. On Zapp, the sample instruction for the image description suggests something succint, to the point i.e. "Glass vase hand-blown, fused and cold-worked. Includes over 80 color combinations". These jurors wanted something more descriptive, more flowery, in some cases more indepth information about the method used.
My point in all of this is to wonder how anyone ever gets it right? Unless you have invested in propanels, you're most likely not getting in. Unless you have predicted the style of frame preferred by the jurors, you're not likely to be selected. And unless you can make up some flowery statement that is not too long and not too short, you're not getting in.
I should say that I have not applied to this show so this is not about me not getting picked - this fair has never been on my radar. I'm just really frustrated by the randomness of the rules and preferences of the jurors that make no sense and make it so much harder for those of us who struggle every day just to make the art.
Thanks for letting me rant.
Replies
Rebecca, you are not off the mark in your comments about jurors. I have been doing shows for something like 30 years and my medium is western hand carved leather. As of 2023 I have been in business for 50 years (1973-2023), part time and full time. In my early show days (1990’s), I thought it was necessary to get into the “best shows” back east, the Midwest and Cherry Creek 45 minutes up the road to be successful. I lost faith in the latter when a local custom boot maker did Cherry Creek and afterwards told me that Rocket Buster Boots, a big production outfit in TX, was there too. Hmmm, guess that jury didn’t do their homework outside their medium.
I have juried western lifestyle work for shows and I know the task is difficult for jurors as well as artists. Artists who do not follow instructions make it more difficult. I also relize some jurors don’t take the time to find out what the artists were asked to provide resulting in the artist getting the boot. IMHO an ideal jurist would be a person who has made a living from doing their art, exhibited at outdoor events, and one who has some knowledge of mediums outside their own. From some juror's asinine comments about my work, I conclude many are deficient in the above. Does this bother me? No! As far as Cherry Creek goes, the wealthy stockbrokers, real estate developers and oil men found me, and I didn’t have to stand on hot Denver asphalt in July. What was sweet was I had the opportunity to tell one of those blokes I didn’t have time to do his work, but it was because I disagreed with his politics. At almost 80, am I getting to be a bit grumpy? I traveled out of state to KS (tornados), TX (sales tax hassle because I am a corp.) and AZ (actually refunded my sales tax payment then tried to collect interest on nonpayment). I have found that Colorado resort area shows in the summer bring the national and international clients in mass to my booth and I consistently do well on sales. You can read my reviews here and on Facebook.
I don't know where you're coming from, but St Louis is one of a half dozen shows that every artist at the top of their game strives to get into. We need more shows like that, not fewer.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
I'm so pleased to see that Larry, Richard and Robert read your statement, Rebecca. Their expertise is spot on. Read closely, follow their directions and do your best. Robert's, even though from 10 years ago, Is still relevant. It is good that you observed the St. Louis Marjorie, from each one of these you going to learn something new and apply it to your own situation. Good luck to you and thank you for Bringing up it to the forefront again.
My rules for being successful at Art Fairs: 1. You need to get into the art fair (paying attention to the juries is important.) 2. You need to have something people will buy when you get there. And a friend told me there is a third rule: don't give up.
Thank you Connie. I put #3 as the most important. If one thing doesn't work try something different. Do not let yourself get in a rut of always doing the same thing. Eventually you will find your market. Then work it.
Thank you for the advice and encouragement! I really appreciate your suggestions and I will forge ahead, doing the best I can with what I have! If the juries don't like my application, there's always a "next year".
Or a different show.
You should also look at the three mock juries I ran and uploaded to YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOiLKrQpzD8&t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAbCyAGo9q4&t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x3vgI9Yi-c&t
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Fortunately the mock jury is just that, not a real jury. The grass thing threw me last year also and is nonsense. Individual image descriptions are rarely read. At a projection jury, most shows read the artist statement out loud to the jurors as they look at your images. I have used the same statement as my artist statement for each individual image and it didn't stop St Louis for accepting me a few years ago.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Robert is right on. I've been doing shows for about 30 years and have visited mock juries. My impression of is there are those who want to create a museum on the street and there are those who want artist's work to sell. I still split my sides laughijg at the woman who thought my leather gun holsters were golf club covers. Then there was another woman very concerned about all the buckles on my belts. (Can you really sell a belt without a buckle?). Not all jurers have a breadth of art/business knowledge IMHO. Live and learn from them, take away what is useful and dump the rest.
Don't let the pickiness get under your skin. I set my booth up on asphalt and then use photoshop to get rid of the leaf and dirt clutter, and clone out any cracks in the pavement.
You need three artists statements, one each for 100, 200, and 300 character sets. Save those in your ZAPP acount so you're not retyping each one as needed.
It sounds like they used a weird set of jurors this year, so take the best advice of theirs and ignore the rest. It's been 10 years since I last attended their mock jury, but I took voluminous notes and organized what was said. It resulted in a three part lengthy article that was broken down into the computer and camera advice, the jury shots, and the booth shots. Each section of the article links to the next. Some of the Photoshop/Imaging adjustments are a little dated as that technlogy moves fast but is still sound.
Here is the link to the first article and you can compare it to what you saw. I sat through two presentations, one one Friday evening, and then over 12 hours on Saturday.
https://www.artfairinsiders.com/forum/topics/st-louis-art-fair-mock...