Just out of curiosity, I searched Wikipedia for “juried competition” and learned some very interesting things about their history.
The earliest juried competitions were held in Greece, under Aeschylus and his successors. During the Middle Ages in 1441, a public poetry competition called the Certame Coronario was held in Florence with the intention of proving that the spoken Italian language was not inferior to Latin. (Interesting reason for a juried competition, huh? LOL!)
Before the advent of the Internet, national and international juried competitions were (and still are) widely advertised in trade journals, newspapers and magazines, with jurists selected from among the artistic elite. Competitions of visual works accepted photographic slides from competitors to represent the work entered because of the cost-prohibitive nature of sending and receiving whole artworks. After judging, only the selected works were sent on for public viewing if the competition included such a venue for the selected works.
Since the advent of the Internet, many competitions for visual works began accepting entries in digital form as well as slide form. The growth of the Internet also saw service firms appear offering organizational tools for juried competitions allowing for such conveniences as online storage and access of digital images. Some juried art competitions exist entirely online.
This Saturday, we will be accepting entries for our fourth annual Island City Juried Art Competition/Exhibit. We’re a little old fashioned in the way we operate. We’ve been advertising it in local publications, in Wilton Manors’ “official” city newsletter, Town Crier, and, of course, on our Facebook page. A couple of local art teachers have shared the information with their students and the Rules & Entry Form are available here on our web site. Now, we wait to see how many people come to Art Gallery 21 on Saturday to bring their art for consideration.
There IS a certain amount of anxiety involved in these final days leading up to the art intake. Will we get at least 25 people? What if we get 50? We have limited space, so that might mean we have to reject (dare I use that word) some artists. We don’t want to reject anyone! And, what about the weather? Sometimes people won’t come out for an event if the weather is crummy, so there’s anxiety about that, too!
The anticipation is the best part of doing the juried art competition! What new artists will we discover? And, oh! The new people we might meet! That’s the best kind of anticipation! Of course, we love seeing our long-time artist friends, too, so, it has that ‘home week’ quality as well!
So much excitement! Only a couple days to go!
Wish us luck!
NOTE: Art intake is Saturday, February 6 from 12 Noon until 3 PM. The winners will be announced at an art social on Friday, February 12 beginning at 7 PM. Cash prizes and ribbons will be awarded and the three winning artists will have their own show March 18 to April 8.