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From the Best of Missouri Hands Conference, March 2013 -- solid tips from Reed McMillan, a man with a long career in art exhibition, currently sales director for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair -- 6 minutes

This is a very useful, down to earth, letter from a woman who runs an art fair in northern Michigan. What I especially like about it is this:

• this is not a nationally ranked show, much like most shows around the country
• the tips are very pragmatic
• it is a great example of what many smaller art fairs should be saying to their applicants

READ ON and LEARN:

I'm sending this to everyone who applied this year, so don't take it personally unless you think you might need to.

We did our jury last night and I have a few comments about image quality.   The whole jury process is very competitive and this should probably go without saying, but I'll say it anyway.  IMAGE QUALITY MATTERS!

Some of you have been sending the same images for quite a few years.  If you have new work, we'd like to see it. 

A few of you sent images that were the wrong size.  Pay attention.  If you send us things that are too small to be seen, it's not helpful to you.

A few of you just sent bad images.  Getting professional photos of your work done is very expensive, I know.  It may not be necessary, but you do need to make sure that the things you send are of good quality.  You have a lot of competition.

I'm going to talk mostly about the booth slides.  I sent out an email to many of you last year and it was obvious that you listened.  Thank you.  It's not important to me that your booth shots be good, but it's VERY important to you.

If you have new work, we need to see a newer booth shot.

The booth shot represents your whole body of work.  If your booth shot is blurry or messy looking...
We try to do a blind jury, so would prefer that neither your name nor your face appear in the shot.
The jurors see four images.  If they see three amazing pieces and then something different in the booth shot, it WILL affect your scoring.  Perhaps you did three really great things in grad school or three great pieces this year.  We need the booth shot to be representative of the work you will be bringing to this year's show.  If there is a disparity between what we see in the booth and the other images, the jurors can't help but wonder.  Some of you just need to update.

The prize for worst booth shot this year goes to someone named David.   Perhaps you know who you are.

We really want to see you do well - we care.

Good luck to you all - responses should go out next week - Donna

Many thanks to Mike Barnes for forwarding this excellent letter to me. He gets the first AFI bumper sticker!