Strategies for juried shows

I was honored to have been invited to jury a landscape exhibit at a local art center today. It made me feel so good to have the opportunity to reward artists who had entered pieces that I felt were well-done, by accepting their work into the show and even designating first-, second- and third-place awards and 2 honorable mentions.

In reflecting on this morning’s experience, I’ve come up with four considerations that an artist needs to keep in mind when deciding whether to and which pieces to enter into a juried show. Having been on the other side, as an artist entering many juried shows myself over the years, I though these ideas might prove helpful to other artists. (Please note that this was a "live" jurying experience. The considerations are somewhat different if the judge is viewing digital images.)

1. BE YOURSELF. At the risk of breaking into a chorus of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” I believe it’s of the utmost importance to BE YOURSELF in your art, and keep making it until you have expressed something about yourself as a person. WHAT CAN YOU SAY THAT NO ON ELSE CAN SAY? What in your experience feels honest and natural to paint about?

2. DEVELOP YOUR CHOPS. Explore and push your materials in the studio, and in a class or workshop if you like. What more can these materials do? What haven’t you tried yet? Several of the entries today showed plainly that the artists hadn’t yet explored the range of possibilities. You have to find out what’s possible before you can understand what methods are the best for articulating what you want to say.

3. CONSULT A PROFESSIONAL FRAMER IF NECESSARY. Framing artwork is an art in itself. As with photographing your artwork, if you can’t assure the highest quality on your own, hire a pro to advise you or do it for you. The frame and mat must ENHANCE the work, not detract from it. A number of works I saw today were well-made but their visual impact was obscured by frame styles that clashed, mat colors that clashed, poorly cut mats, or mats that were too width or too thin to compliment the artwork. There was one photograph that was framed in regular glass, rather than a non-glare type. It was moved to 4 different places in the room to try and display it best, but in all of them, the sharp glare of light off the surface made it impossible to see clearly. (Ultimately it was not accepted into the show.)

4. KEEP WORKING UNTIL YOU’RE READY. Art is not a race! There’s no shame in not entering a particular exhibit or even deciding not to exhibit at all until you have reached a certain level of understanding and ability – by that I mean, you have found something new and important to say. It takes years and years, and many many paintings, to fully understand a subject and explore it from all angles.

Ultimately, an artwork's acceptance into a juried show is up to the judge’s or committee's preferences. But if you’re offering the best work you can make, displayed in the best way you can, you’re doing all you can to assure the work’s acceptance.

And you will ultimately bring much pleasure to your viewer, as I was so pleased to see so many impressive works of art as I did today.

At the top of this post is "Niche," a painting of mine that was accepted into a show at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1998. I was thrilled to exhibit at such a prestigious venue, especially as my career was just starting out at that time.

A chance to brighten the walls

Excellent -- my painting "Butter" (acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 28" square) has been chosen to belong to REACH Beyond Domestic Violence, a Waltham-based organization that acts as center for refuge, education, advocacy and change. This is a donation I have made through the Art Connection in Boston. I hope it brightens someone's day!

New painting, just finished

Just completed a new piece this morning, the first of what will ultimately be a triptych.



I am working larger than usual; this painting is 56" H x 30" W. The largest I've worked in the recent past is 44" high. Those extra inches make a huge difference, and affect the composition considerably.

Here is a detail:

Origins: an ongoing series on my artistic pathway

One of my favorite bloggers, textile artist Lisa Call, has been writing an “Online Retrospective” on her blog, and I’m enjoying finding out about the origins of one of her favorite series. In addition, one of my favorite painters, Ian MacLeod, has been posting images of his older works on Facebook, and I have found it fascinating to follow his process of development.

So I’ve decided to do something similar on my blog. I’ve been digging through old photo albums (I didn’t get a digital camera until 2005!) to find the origins of my pathway as an artist, and I will be presenting images of my older works here as part of an ongoing series.

After years and years of starts and stops, confusion and delays, and attending one semester at one college and another semester at another college, I finally earned my bachelor’s degree from Lesley University’s Adult Bachelor’s Program when I was 31. (When I attended in 1991-3, it was Lesley College’s Intensive Residency Option Program.)

By this time, I had determined to become a professional artist. I wasn’t entirely sure what that involved, but I knew I wanted to JUST PAINT. If it meant doing something else to earn money and support my painting, that was fine with me.

I knew I wanted a master’s degree, but I realized I needed more studio experience to get to that level. So I applied to and was accepted as a “special student” at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, where I studied for 3 full-time semesters in 1994 (spring, summer and fall) with the intention of: 1. immersing myself in creating art as many hours of the day as I could, and 2. compiling a portfolio that would get me into graduate school. (A career counselor told me once that I shouldn’t use the phrase “special student,” but that is the name Mass. Art used to describe those who are studying alongside undergraduates but who are not themselves matriculated or on a B.F.A. track.)

I signed up for a figure drawing course, as I had always loved working from the figure, and I enjoyed an excellent class with Barbara Grad. I also signed up for figure sculpture but instantly hated it and dropped it after the first day (I am not a three-dimensional person). And the rest of my credits were taken up with what was called “Painting Studio” – in other words, you are given a studio and assigned an adviser (mine was the wonderful Dan Kelleher), and you just paint paint paint whenever you want to. I was in Heaven.

Below is one of the figure studies I created in Barbara Grad’s class (she showed us how to use ink and a mop brush for our gesture drawings). Today I appreciate that this picture reveals the first stirrings of my love for abstract shape.



During my Painting Studio hours, I soon moved into making works on paper like the ones shown below (using various combinations of acrylic, ink and pastel). I notice in retrospect that they all have door-like shapes, as if I understood subconsciously that I was stepping over a threshold into new territory.

In a future installment: My discoveries at graduate school, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Tribute to my favorite teacher

It was such a downer for me to remember that awful professor (well, non-professor) I had at the Art Institute of Boston, that I’ve decided to write now about one of the best art teachers I ever had.

I took 2 drawing courses at the Art Institute with Judith Brassard Brown, and it was she who really taught me to draw. Actually, what she taught me was that drawing means LOOKING.

She taught me to use the drawing tool to explore every inch of the entire form. Under her tutelage, I came to understand and develop a dynamic connection between observing with my eye, translating with my brain, and connecting to my hand.

It was that style of moving the drawing tool around the form that inspired the curving lines I use in my paintings today. I don’t consider them to be just a bunch of flippy marks, but rather lines that move through space in a sensory way. I am able to translate this sensation so naturally because of my training with Judy.

Judy brought warmth and fun to her classroom. I always felt like she was glad to have her students there and excited about sharing her knowledge with us. The experience of studying with her was a combination of joy and dedication, something I strive to convey in my own classroom today.

She currently teaches at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts. I hope her current students know how lucky they are to have her, and that they avail themselves of all she has to teach them, both technically and spiritually. The learning experience doesn’t get any better than this!

Weird trip down memory lane

A strange experience today. I took one of my college classes on a field trip to a local art museum, and one of the artists whose work was on exhibit was a professor I had years ago. I saw his name on the wall, and the odd experience I had in his class came back to me in a flood.

I was a freshman in art school when I took this professor’s beginning drawing class. He attended our class a total of 3 times. For every other class meeting, he sent his secretary to the classroom to take attendance and give us students a drawing assignment, which she delivered verbally (no references, no examples, no directions, nothing). We were told that he was sorry, but he was working very hard on his book and was unable to attend our class. Sometimes the reason given for his absence was that he was traveling and out of town. I believe once we were told he wasn’t feeling well that day.

I am shocked when I think back on the memory, that this cretin thought it was acceptable to pull this sort of stunt not once but almost all of the days in the semester. I am also shocked that he was able to get away with it. He was the Chair of the Foundation Department, so who knows what effect his position had on what he was able to conceal from the school administration.

I am further shocked that neither I nor any of my classmates filed a formal complaint against him. I remember feeling indignant that he assigned us final grades when he obviously had no idea who we were (I received a B+), although I still never spoke up about the situation. Ah, youth.

I feel helpless and angry at this memory. I guess the only pro-active thing I can do is to promise myself that I will never forget what an honor it is to be a teacher, and continue to try to do the best possible job I can for my students. I like to hope there is some ultimate justice for those who treat their students, their colleagues, the school that employs them, and the world of art with such contempt.

Steppin' out

Completed another shoe drawing in my series today:

Embarking for Oman

Tomorrow the three paintings in my Ripple series will be picked up by an art shipping company on behalf of the ART In Embassies Program, eventually destined for the U.S. Embassy in Muscat, Oman. I'm very excited about their impending journey, and honored to have had my work selected by the AIE curator for a second time. (From 2008 until earlier this year, 2 of my paintings were on exhibit at the U.S. Embassy in Younde, Cameroon.) Ripple 1 (above), 2 (below) and 3 will be on loan for public exhibition at the Embassy for the next 2 years.

Bye, guys! Be good! See you later!

(Each of these paintings is acrylic on canvas, 40" H x 28" W, created in 2010.)

So you think YOUR job sucks?

This photograph has a place in one of my family's photo albums, and I think it's a fascinating window into the past, one that gives us both historical information and reasons to be thankful for the relatively luxurious workplaces of the present day.

The picture shows my great-grandmother, Louise Parrott, who is the second person from the left, laboring at (according to the wording on the back, in my grandfather's hand-writing) the Strout and Stritter Shoe Company on Willow Street in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1917. What her task is, exactly, is unclear, as her hands do not show in the picture, but it must have involved some step in the shoe-making process.

I observe that these folks are working standing up, with nowhere to rest their feet or legs, on a hard wooden floor. The lighting doesn't look great; at least they are near windows, but I see only one bulb of electric light and it isn't lighting anyone's work station directly. The "Boss" (as he is identified in the photograph) is stationed nearby, where he can keep a close eye and ear on his employees. (Hopefully he was a nice guy, but if he wasn't and he didn't like the way you were doing your job, he would likely make that clear.)

There don't seem to be any fans or ventilation, and I can see whirring belts on a machine in the foreground, so likely it was noisy as well as stuffy in there.

The large rack behind my great-grandmother, which is not the only one in this workroom, reveals the kind of pace these workers were expected to keep: lots of shoes on there for such a small staff to be making.

So whenever you think your job sucks, remember this picture. It could be worse!

Progress on Artist Dates

I have made some progress at going on Artist Dates (as described in this earlier blog entry). My first experience was a visit to the New Bedford Open Studios event last weekend.

I wasn't expecting to consider art-related activities as Artist Dates, since I have such a tendency to over-analyze career issues, and open studios, like other happenings centered around art, tend to trigger my obsessive career-related planning. Also, I went to this event with my husband, and you're supposed to go on artist dates alone, strictly speaking.

BUT somehow I managed to keep my head from spinning into the "I should do this, I should do that" career management realm, and keep the experience a social one. This is mainly due to the fact that the artists I visited made me feel so welcome, and were so happy to talk with me about the joys of creating and the excitement of living the artistic life. So a wonderful experience, all around. (The picture, above left, shows me chatting with my dear friend, Alma Cummings, one of the artists participating in Hatch Street Studios in New Bedford). (Photo by my husband, Kevin Seward.)

I also have been inspired by a blog I just found, titled alltumbledown, written by a stylish young New Yorker who, while on a budget (she works at a small museum in Manhattan), manages to dress with panache. She documents her daily outfits on the blog, and I'm inspired by her ideas about personal style and putting together a unique wardrobe with flair and on budget.

So, encouraged by her blog, I took a spontaneous Artist Date shopping trip. Again, strictly speaking, Artist Dates are supposed to be non-monetary adventures, but I had seen an ad for some cool and cheap boots at Target and so decided to stop by and check them out. The boots didn't turn out quite as expected (gold buckles in real life, which didn't look as good as the silver buckles shown in the ad).

BUT I did find that Target has a wonderful selection of thick, comfy, stretchy cotton/Lycra tights in bright colors for only $7 a pair. As most of my wardrobe is black, bright tights are a fun way to bring in a little color punch (especially as the autumn temperatures start edging down). I managed to find a pair in hot pink that worked well with a hot pink skirt and a hot pink top I already had. So yesterday I was able to dress head to toe in pink and bring a little fashion cheer to a dreary, rainy day!

So while these experiences aren't the sort of deep-seated, soul-searching Artist Dates that Julia Cameron describes in "The Artist's Way," they DID awaken my senses and bring some cheer into my everyday life, which is, after all, the goal! More Dates to come ...

Newest work on website

I have just had my website updated, with new paintings in the New Works and Waves sections. Please click here to view.

Hot feet

I finished another drawing in my ongoing shoe series today:



I started this series about a year ago, to give myself something to do in my fashion illustration classes while my students were working. (They tend to be small classes, and I don't want to "hover" too much!)

I have 10 drawings so far. When I've gotten to 20, I'm planning to frame and exhibit them.