Juried

Spent Tuesday as a silent observer during the jurying of the San Antonio Fiber Artist’s annual exhibit – the third time I’ve been an observer for such a process. Do this a few times and it takes away all the questions one has about how personal is this process and how the acceptance or rejection of one’s work is subject to individual impulse and opinion – even with skilled professional jurors who bring all their experience and expertise to bear on the process.  And how the pool and variety of other work to be hung influences the choices. And how different people weigh different elements. (More than one work that had won an award in another exhibit, or was included in another, equally professionally juried show, didn’t get in this one.)

Still.
My work didn’t make the cut and that stings the ego.
The remedy for me was to make something simple, something not too challenging today. To get back on the horse as it were, but not the untamed bronc.

Also, I have to acknowledge that at least one of the pieces I submitted didn’t really work in one way or another – even if it wasn’t, for me, the way the juror said it didn’t work. (We were anonymous observers; the juror not familiar with our work, so we heard the comments, as well as got the reviewing sheets with written remarks.) Sometimes I get so far down the track on a piece that it just has to be done the way it gets done – and that was the case in the largest and most ambitious of the work that I entered.