Fabienne Micheline Cassman on tue 19 mar 02
Speaking of slides...
I went to this session to see what makes a slide click. The panel
consisted of a curator, an educator and an editor. All three had very
different ways they looked at a slide. The curator seemed based on
feelings based on her experience alone; the educator was giving pointer on
lighting, shadows etc which is what was discussed in the clayart room;
finally, the editor seemed concerned about reproducibility. After their
explanation of what makes a good slide, they proceeded to show 39 slides
and picked 1st, 2nd, 3d places and a honorable mention; the audience did
the same during the mock session. When I saw their choices, I felt that
all they had told us for the first hour went out the window; it just didn't
seem consistent with what they had said during the previous hour.
Anyone else had that feeling or did I miss the boat again? :)
BTW, only _one_ slide was picked by two jurors out of three jurors; one of
Joyce Michaud's bottles I believe. I sure would hate to be in their
position if this was a real session.
Cheers,
Fabienne http://www.milkywayceramics.com/
WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above
because my cats have apparently learned to type.
KLeSueur@AOL.COM on tue 19 mar 02
Having just juried an Ann Arbor show for the second time I can tell you one definite thing about getting into a show. It's a crap shoot. Especially in the large categories of clay and jewelry there is so much similar work that just one point up or down by one juror can mean the difference. The majority of the the work I looked at fell into the 6, 7, or 8 range. Very little was mediocre. Very little was outstanding.
That said, I offer some advice:
When the application says 3 work slides and one of the booth that means a booth with work in it and slides of your work, not slides of you working. (I'm not kidding on this one. There were both empty booths and slides of the artists at work.)
If it's on the cover of a magazine, don't copy it and take a slide. Everyone else is doing the same thing.
DO NOT take slides of your work sitting on rocks, grass, etc. A neutral background, preferably grey. All slides should have the same background.
Do not take a slide of your booth at a show. Set it up at home, inside if possible, with good light. Put one third of the pots in that you normally do. The camera will make it look full. When you are up agains 150 other potters the booth slide can make or break you. Make it your best slide.
Kathi LeSueur
Craig Clark on wed 20 mar 02
I'm concerned that the slide of the booth, and an artificial one at that
according to your advice, may be the make or break slide and that it ought
to be the best one. That's ridiculous. I would hope that the individual
slides of the work would be the most important, not the display.
Craig Dunn Clark
619 East 11 1/2 st
Houston, Texas 77008
(713)861-2083
mudman@hal-pc.org
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: Juried Slides. Pick Me!
> Having just juried an Ann Arbor show for the second time I can tell you
one definite thing about getting into a show. It's a crap shoot. Especially
in the large categories of clay and jewelry there is so much similar work
that just one point up or down by one juror can mean the difference. The
majority of the the work I looked at fell into the 6, 7, or 8 range. Very
little was mediocre. Very little was outstanding.
>
> That said, I offer some advice:
>
> When the application says 3 work slides and one of the booth that means a
booth with work in it and slides of your work, not slides of you working.
(I'm not kidding on this one. There were both empty booths and slides of the
artists at work.)
>
> If it's on the cover of a magazine, don't copy it and take a slide.
Everyone else is doing the same thing.
>
> DO NOT take slides of your work sitting on rocks, grass, etc. A neutral
background, preferably grey. All slides should have the same background.
>
> Do not take a slide of your booth at a show. Set it up at home, inside if
possible, with good light. Put one third of the pots in that you normally
do. The camera will make it look full. When you are up agains 150 other
potters the booth slide can make or break you. Make it your best slide.
>
> Kathi LeSueur
>
>
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becky schroeder on thu 21 mar 02
i'm ssssoooooooooooo confused. what i learned from the nceca slide critique
that russell helped organize (my new hero) was that the fad of the moment
was to have your pots shot against a gray background that at the bottom is
light gray fading into dark gray at the top of the slide. this sure seems
like a very straightjacketed approach to me. sort of like the old rule that
you don't wear white shoes before memorial day or that you must wear loud
guady pink flowered capris to any event in conneticut before 4pm in the
summer season.
what worries me is: will they give us plenty of warning when they change
the rules or do we have to suffer the humiliation of presenting slides with
hogs in them before we are clued into the new rules?
becky schroeder
ps. the pot slide with the hog mama and her babies was the highlight of
nceca and i don't mean that with any malice in my heart. it was AWESOME.
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Bruce Girrell on thu 21 mar 02
Craig Clark wrote:
> I'm concerned that the slide of the booth, and an artificial one at that
> according to your advice, may be the make or break slide and that it ought
> to be the best one. That's ridiculous. I would hope that the individual
> slides of the work would be the most important, not the display.
Craig,
I think what she was saying is that the quality of the work is so uniformly
good that the only tie-breaker is the booth slide.
Bruce Girrell
in snowy northern Michigan where Winter just let us _think_ that Spring may
be coming
KLeSueur@AOL.COM on thu 21 mar 02
In a message dated Wed, 20 Mar 2002 5:45:55 PM Eastern Standard Time, Craig Clark writes:
> I'm concerned that the slide of the booth, and an artificial one at that
> according to your advice, may be the make or break slide and that it ought
> to be the best one. That's ridiculous. I would hope that the individual
> slides of the work would be the most important, not the display.>>
The booth slide shows the body of work by the artist. Almost anyone can come up with three good slides. As a juror, when I am faced with work slides of equal quality, an excellent booth slide showing that the potter can fill a booth with good work will alway win the day.
In my opinion, the purpose of a booth slide is not to show that you have a canopy, that you have weights to keep it from blowing away, that you are a beautiful person, or that lots of people come to your booth. The booth slide shows that you are capable of presenting qualtiy work in quanity in a well designed display.
If I can't tell that from your booth slide your score will be affected.
Kathi LeSueur
vince pitelka on thu 21 mar 02
> > Do not take a slide of your booth at a show. Set it up at home, inside
if
> possible, with good light. Put one third of the pots in that you normally
> do. The camera will make it look full. When you are up agains 150 other
> potters the booth slide can make or break you. Make it your best slide.
Kathi -
This seems very strange advice. Every single booth slide I have seen has
been photographed at a show, and in my experience the ONLY purpose of the
booth shot is to prove that you can put together a good both at a show.
Putting up a booth elsewhere doesn't count for much. If you set up your
booth in artificial circumstances and artificial light, it will look
artificial and the juror(s) will not take it seriously at all. Far better
to show your booth at a show, even with a few customers in the booth.
Otherwise your advice is right on target, especially concerning using simple
backgrounds which do not interfere with the work, and NEVER including slides
of the artist working.
The general objective of the slides is to show the work as effectively as
possible with no distractions. Obviously that is not the objective of the
booth slide.
Best wishes -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Crafts
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Home - vpitelka@dtccom.net
615/597-5376
Work - wpitelka@tntech.edu
615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
http://www.craftcenter.tntech.edu/
Snail Scott on fri 22 mar 02
At 09:57 PM 3/21/02 -0700, you wrote:
>i'm ssssoooooooooooo confused. what i learned from the nceca slide critique
>that russell helped organize (my new hero) was that the fad of the moment
>was to have your pots shot against a gray background that at the bottom is
>light gray fading into dark gray at the top of the slide.
This has been conventional for a fairly long
time...look at old magazines. It IS very
restrictive, and doesn't show the work to its
best advantage at times. But, remember, this
is _documentation_ photography, not product
advertising. When you shoot photos for ads or
promo postcards, feel free to use whatever
colorful patterned backdrops or scrunched-up
fabrics and foliage will set off the work in
an appealing fashion. Just not for the slides
that you submit for juried competitions. I
suspect that it won't look too dated anytime
soon. (Less so than those 'hippie pot' shots
from 1970, sitting on a log in the garden.)
My portfolio photos arent always that strait-
laced, either, but I don't drift too far away.
That neutral backdrop is the label that says,
"I understand the professional standards of
my craft. I AM a professional." Of course it's
not necessarily true, but when a juror looks at
slides, selecting artists for a show, they're
not just picking art. They're picking what they
hope is work that IS as good as it looks, that
will be delivered on time, with paperwork in
good order, by someone who won't 'drop the
ball'. They are putting their gallery's (or
their fair's) reputation on the line with your
work, and they don't want to spend their effort
on someone who won't live up to their end of
the deal. They don't have much to base that
judgement on: just a fill-in-the-blank entry
application and a few slides. A neutral-backdrop
slide is a tacit reassurance that you understand
their expectations. (Typewriting the application
doesn't hurt, either, if your handwriting sucks.)
There is still a range of acceptable neutrals
to choose from, though. That graded gray is a
popular choice, but any beige, white, ivory,
tan, or charcoal backdrop will be OK. Even
black can be lit to vary the tone and eliminate
the 'amazing levitating pot' effect.
I agree that it's annoying, restrictive, and
superficial, but for now, and probably for some
time to come, it's the standard. If I went to
a day-job interview, I wouldn't wear overalls.
The neutral-backdrop slide is our 'interview
suit'.
sort of like the old rule that
>you don't wear white shoes before memorial day..
Now THERE's the John Waters tie-in! Remember
what happened to Patty Hearst in "Serial Mom"?
-Snail
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