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ON SELECTION
© Judy McDermott
Ozquilt Network Newsletter #40, June 2001
Recently, I was selector (with the gallery director Therese Kenyon) for 'The New Quilt 2001: Women's Work' at Manly Gallery. The submitted quilts were excellent but the slides of many were appalling. Edges cut off, washing baskets, out of focus, just not all there! Another sin was unfinished quilts. A couple were minus binding but there were slides showing only a piece of fabric and promising 'borders'. If the jurors can't see the entire quilt they can't select the quilt. We don't know what the piece will look like. I'll advise that in future selection be from finished work only.
Several quilters neglected to put in the size of the quilt. Again I'd recommend rejection before selection of pieces not accompanied by asked for data. Ozquilt editor suggested Manly organisers might contact would-be exhibitors for more information but I disagree. The organisers have enough to do without doing other peoples' housekeeping. Quilt National receives over 1800 entries, should they ring those who filled in the forms badly?
A couple of the slides were on a black background (suggested in The Quilters' Guild Inc. newsletter 'Template' some time back?) and this seemed to totally kill the colour; it was not possible to tell what one was 'really' seeing. Use a white background and, especially if inexperienced, take lots of pictures from different distances to learn what works with your camera. This is the only way to nut out what yours will chop off around the edges (the instruction book will help here). I take lots of slides and sometimes I have lots of good images and sometimes lots of crook ones. The slides I take of small quilts generally are fine but I've had almost no success with large, bed sized pieces. Best of all are professional shots, expensive and not always 100% perfect but if there is a disaster the photographer will redo your stuff. But this takes time; it is not good for deadlines. I have never had duds from the professional I use.
This is meant to be helpful, not bloody minded. Being a juror is hard and I've worried about it since. One of my favourite quilts was rejected because of the above. You just could not tell what it was like. The first Manly show I entered asked for two slides. I reckoned two good ... more better, so sent a wardrobe of images. Is my face red ... I was rejected too. We are blessed that The Quilters Guild and Manly Art Gallery hold this show, that volunteers care enough to run it. We need to present our quilts and paper work perfectly. Don't miss out on selection, here or elsewhere, because of lousy presentation.
Judy McDermott © 2001
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