Image Quality & Juried or Curated?

Tonight at the Art in City Hall Committee meeting we juried the show In Your Dreams. It was my first time being part of a jury. There were 100's of entries and very little time to look at an image and make a decision, like 6 seconds an image. It was really intense. It made me realize how fast the process is when you submit images to juried shows. After the meeting I was talking to an artist friend who suggested that in the course of an artist's career perhaps you only want to apply for juried shows for 2-3 years max. That seemed like a good plan to me. I just have to get on that a bit more actively. The one thing that struck me is that quality of images is incredibly important. If your work isn't documented well, it makes it difficult for the jury to see it and then that hurts you. This was a big issue raised during my "mentor" meeting at the college art association conference in LA earlier this year. At the time it felt like someone took a big bite out of my heart. I've been working on better documenting my work (installation/video) but it was still not good enough at that mentor meeting. And now I know it really has to be good enough for it to pass on a fundamental level. blablahblah. get it. document your work WELL. bye.

syke

it was also interesting to get a better understanding of the difference between a juried show and curated show. I felt like juried shows you were selected but it's still an open call and anyone can apply whereas curated shows, artists are selected not through an open call, it's far more exclusive. that's probably obvious to most artists. however it does change the nature of the show. perhaps that's why 2-3 years max for that forum is best for career artists.