{"id":11372,"date":"2017-07-24T12:21:21","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T19:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=11372"},"modified":"2017-07-24T12:21:21","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T19:21:21","slug":"judging-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2017\/07\/24\/judging-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Judging Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was at a big art festival with a hundred or so artists displaying. When you get that many, it’s almost too hard to take in unless you have some sort of measure of what to look for. After a cursory look around, I came up with my own judging system. It was simple. Just four categories:<\/p>\n

The Best of the Best<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Worst of the Best<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Best of the Worst<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Worst of the Worst.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I’m not saying it was that easy to apply everything within those categories, many were in a class by themselves, but it helped me (and made it all a lot more fun). Here’s how I made the distinctions:<\/p>\n

Everything in the top of the two tiers displayed a high level of craftsmanship as well as something personal, something extra, unique. There was also a measure of confidence displayed. The Best of the Best<\/em><\/span> had a high level of this.<\/p>\n

Those judged The Worst of the Best<\/em><\/span> may have had a little less craftsmanship, but still plenty of individual expression.<\/p>\n

As for the lower tier, The Best of the Worst<\/em><\/span>, the maker displayed a high degree of craft, but not as much art. Often these are very impressive pieces and they get a lot of acclaim. The detail can be prodigious. They’re made by a person who can copy anything . . . and often does. The time put into each can be long and intensive. But there’s nothing extra, nothing personal, no risks, nothing for the viewer to interpret, and nothing left of the mess in the laboratory.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Left)\u00a0Father Joe<\/em> (c. 2002) and (right) Father Art\u00a0<\/em>(c. 2012), both oil over acrylic, 44×27. (Click for larger view.)<\/h6>\n

The Worst of the Worst<\/em><\/span>, of course, lacks in both craftsmanship and creativity. I didn’t see any of this at the big juried show, but there’s plenty of it being made. It may be a starting point for new artists, but shouldn’t be settled for.<\/p>\n

By the way, these judgments had nothing to do with sales. Art may be liked by somebody and purchased in all categories. This is just my own attempt to make some sense of why I like a piece and why I don’t.<\/p>\n

(Maybe another time I’ll write on doing all things with heart . . . sort of going along with all this.)<\/p>\n

For the sake of illustration, above are two of my own works, painted ten years apart. By my judgment they are in slightly different categories, Worst of\u00a0Best<\/em><\/span> and Best of Worst<\/em><\/span>. What do you think?<\/p>\n

Or about any of this?<\/p>\n

_________<\/p>\n

PS Enjoying your comments. Check back to last post for how they contributed to\u00a0Creativity, A Funny Thing,<\/em>\u00a0under “Recent Posts,” right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever wonder how to evaluate things aesthetically? Here’s an approach I’ve come up with . . . complete with an exercise to apply it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11372"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11372"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12218,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11372\/revisions\/12218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}