Artsy Shark Explains Why Strong Artists Get Rejected from Juried Shows
In her guide on Artsy Shark, Carolyn Edlund discusses how juried art exhibitions and fairs operate, emphasizing that even high-quality entries can face rejection. She explains that talented artists might not make the cut since jurors evaluate submissions independently, often without knowledge of each other's scores. Applications are sorted by medium, and a scoring scale from 1 to 7 is utilized, with the average score determining acceptance. A low score can greatly diminish an application's prospects. Edlund reassures that rejection does not equate to a lack of talent and advises artists to ensure their images accurately reflect their work and adhere to submission guidelines. She encourages resubmission and improvement. The article ends with a prompt for email updates from Artsy Shark.
Key facts
- Carolyn Edlund has evaluated and scored artists for decades and has juried alone and in groups.
- Group jurors often score independently without seeing other jurors' scores, and sometimes do not know who the other jurors are.
- Art fair applications are divided into categories such as jewelry, wood, photography, glass and painting.
- One scoring system uses scores of 1 through 7, with 1 lowest and 4 not allowed to prevent neutral responses.
- Scores are averaged and the organizer selects the highest-scoring applicants for available spaces, often within each category.
- An application with scores of 7, 7 and 2 averages 5.33, while three scores of 6 average 6, so the latter ranks higher.
- If the acceptance cutoff is 6, an application averaging 5.33 is left out even with two highest possible scores.
- Poor lighting, glare or an unclear view of the surface in submitted images can leave a juror unconvinced.
Entities
Artists
- Carolyn Edlund
Institutions
- Artsy Shark