The jury process

Today was the first step of the open studios jury process. There were 3 jurors, all uninvolved with the event in any other way. Each applicant submitted 3 images or 6 images (if they were applying for the scholarship). Each juror gave each applicant a single score from 1 to 6. The range of 1 to 6 was chosen (over 1 to 5) so that the jurors didn't have the option of doing a '3', should they be indecisive about which way to go; they had to commit to 1 direction or the other.

We went through all the images first, without scoring, which gave the jurors an idea of the overall pool. Then they scored the applicants on the 2nd go-around. It was a very quiet group, very little talking, chatting, and there were just a few questions. From my vantage point, I could see how a couple of the jurors were scoring, and I thought, "wow, I would never get in with these guys!" It was really very interesting to see how they were scoring, what their preferences were, etc.

After the scoring, the jurors left, and we stayed to tally up the scores. Now my job is to enter it all into a database, sortable by a variety of fields. Then we get together again to review the scores and other qualifying factors.

That, pretty much was the day.