Dear Peter,
That's great. I'm so glad to see this sort of encouragement of
fledgling bookmakers!
As you know, we've been sponsoring book art competitions at The
Center for Book Arts for over 3 decades, and have organized about 150
exhibitions. Generally we present emerging or senior artists, though
occasionally have had student shows.. Each year we also have an
annual members' exhibition that is juried, and there is a different
jury every year. We also do a poetry chapbook competition, and that
gets 600 to 1000 entries annually and has changing judges.
I've also juried and curated book art exhibitions at other
institutions. What I've found is that slides or jpegs are ok for a
first view, and can eliminate most of the dogs, but you have to see
the actual work to tell if it's good.
The judges should be book artists, collectors or curators who are
familiar with a wide variety of work in the field. In the 1970's the
NEA and our state arts council had printmakers judge book art grant
applications. That did not work. We printed petitions and got book
art to be a separate category. We prefer having outsiders come in to
jury, and look for people with name recognition in the field, as that
stimulates more entries.
Prizes also help get more entries. The bigger the prize, the
better. Though for students, a small prize, medal or certificate
along with accolade may be sufficient. And yes, have the entry form
as a PDF on your website.
An exhibition is a must. That allows for different levels of award.
Just being accepted into the exhibition is a prize. Then there can be
prizes in different categories, which also makes for a better award ceremony.
Best regards,
Richard
http://minsky.com
http://centerforbookarts.org
At 11:25 AM 3/15/2007, you wrote:
>Hurrah for the book arts! The art of the book! Artists' books and
>artist's books! Livres d'artistes! And all those who encourage their
>continuance!
>
>We are considering starting an annual/biennial Stanford student
>artists' book competition. While we have no specific book program,
>classes in the Art Dept. are offered on making photography books,
>plus the usual printmaking, etc.
>
>Have any of you sponsored an artists' book competition/exhibition?
>
>How do you judge the submissions?
>Who judges the submissions?
>Do not judge, just exhibit?
>Prize?
>Big Prize?
>Exhibition?
>Web site with competition specifics available?
>
>Please respond to the list as this info will certainly be of interest to many.
>
>Yours in Bookness, whatever form it might take,
>
>Peter Blank
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