Long, tedious process involved in judging the art

It may look like NASA's control room, but these are the judges (selection committee) for the Coconut Grove Arts Festival. I sat in with them yesterday as they went through the applicants for 2D art (paintings, and things on canvas). Today a second set of judges are going through all the 3D submissions (jewelry, sculptures, etc.). I wasn't a judge, I just watched the process. The judges are random artists and art lovers who randomly choose the art by what they like through gut reactions.

While it's thought that the same artists are in the show all the time, there is actually a 30% turnover each year and every year, all artists are required to re-submit their work. They send in "zapplications," through a program called "Zapp." It's all done anonymously and blindly and the judges are not privy to the names or any information on the submissions they are seeing.

1200 applications came in this year and out of that, only 330 will make it. The Coconut Grove show is very important to most artists and in many cases, it's their whole livelihood for the year. They make most or all of their money in this one show, so the judges had a pretty big job ahead of them.

While explaining the process to the judges yesterday, Lilia Garcia, Arts Festival Board Member and Chair of the Gallery Committee said, "We want the best art that is produced. It's amazing how many good artists we say 'no' to." And it's true. As you sit in the dark room and watch the art pieces flash by, you see amazing art that needs to be whittled down to just a fraction, for the show.

If a piece of art won at last year's show, the artist is automatically in the following year, so along with the cash prizes they win, for first, second and other categories, this is usually the best prize -- not having to go through the judging process again the next year.

There are five screens in front of the judges, Katrina Gallegos runs the logistics of it all and does an excellent job. Each artist's work is shown one at a time. On the left screen is a photo of how the actual booth will look, this is an important part of the process, the four remaining screens show the artwork, and the judges then decide on the quality of that work and whether they feel it should be part of the festival. They judge on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest score and of course 10 being the best.

Many local Grove artists are concerned about not getting into the show. They feel that there should be a section for 33133 artists. But this would not be fair to all the artists who apply and whose art, frankly, may be better. The simplest response to Grove artists who feel that they should be part of the show is to apply. When was the last time you applied? And if turned down, why not come back again and again and keep applying?

There are different judges each year, so this will allow for different tastes and a variety of styles year after year. Yesterday, the judges who spent six hours judging the art were Lilia Garcia, Stefano Campanini, Barbara Tejada, Ilana Vardy and Vivian Donnell Rodriguez. Today another set of five will judge the final portion.

The Coconut Grove Arts Festival is February 19 to 21, 2011.


Katrina Gallegos explains the Zapp process to one of the judges.