Front Range Contemporary Quilters (FRCQ) hosted their regular meeting last Monday (left right after the meeting so the posting is showing up today).  The guest speaker was Alice Zrebiec a curator at the Denver Art Museum with a specialty in textiles.  Alice was invited to speak because she had juried two shows that many of the art quilters were involved with, the show in Colorado Springs for Studio Art Quilt Associates and the show at the Art Museum in Utah held this past June.

As artists we wanted to hear the ideas and process of jurying a show because it's the basis for many of us who are looking to get exposure in the art world.  She explained that for her the best way to jury is alone because when there are multiple jurors it often becomes a back room political game with jurors trading their nod in order to have a piece they like included in the show.

The key points were that the photographs must be done professionally.  Too many artists feel that hanging a piece of art on the back fence will get them in the show and that's not true.  Make sure that the photographer works with photographing art and not children's portraits at the park.  Her second piece of advice was that when submitting keep the submissions as a cohesive unit.  If you can submit three pieces and you only have two, don't throw in any old third piece just the fill the allowance.  In most cases that piece will make the jurors question your true ability and it breaks up the flow created when viewing the slides/digital entry.  She also thought it helped if artists knew something about the venue where the show will be held because it will give you an idea about the size of the pieces that work best.

There's a lot more but you'll have to wait for further entries, but believe me there's more involved than you would think when jurying an art show.

Captivated...
Greg