Jurying The SAA 2020 Members' Exhibition

     Well, it seems this year is bringing many changes in all aspects of life for many of us, including the Society of Animal Artists that has shifted to doing all our juries online. When the SAA started out, they used to jury their exhibitions from the actual works ... imagine having to do that now! Then they transitioned to jurying from works submitted via slides. Many of us, including me, remember submitting our works to numerous shows this way and having to tape the slides with a special heat resistant silver-tape, in order to block off areas showing around the actual artwork. It was a time-consuming process and your slides became cherished possessions. You always included a self-addressed, stamped envelope to be sure to have them returned to you after the jury process. 

Fast forward a couple of decades and now artists can easily submit online via the magical internet! Although the submission process was the same this year, the actual jurying process had to be changed due to the travel limitations associated with the COVID 19 virus, so instead of jurying in person whilst sitting in the comfort of SAA President Reneé Bemis' home theatre, the panel of 9 jurors juried the artworks on their own computer screens at home. Like years past, artist's names were removed from the works, and they were uploaded in random order to two dropbox folders, one for small works under 8 inches, and the other with all other regular-sized works.

The SAA 57th Annual Exhibition at the Hiram Blauvelt

The process actually worked very well, and the jurors were pleased with being able to take a little more time to look more closely at the works, instead of having to make almost a split-second choice, like has been done in the past when jurying in person. The show looks fabulous, so it's further proof that this method worked very well. On that note, the Board has also been having meetings with the online service, Zoom, which is working very well. So like I say, when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade, and that's exactly what this amazing organization is doing to make the necessary changes to keep moving forward.

The SAA 57th Annual Exhibition Awards Banquet at the Hiram Blauvelt

The 2020 SAA Members Exhibition will hopefully take place at the Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum August 29th thru November 1st. The show can be seen online via the SAA Website.

SAA artist Jim Coe demonstrates outside the museum

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Until next time ~ Rachelle Siegrist for the SAA