Celebrating the 30th DIMENSIONS exhibition organized by Saskatchewan Craft Council

Submitted by Vivian Orr, SCC Communications and Publications Coordinator

Premier's Prize Award for the Outstanding Entry in DIMENSIONS - Annemarie Buchmann-Gerber

Discover Saskatchewan's only open, juried touring exhibition of Fine Craft. Gain insight by viewing the DIMENSIONS Catalogue. It offers a wealth of information about the jurors, the jurors' statement, the history of DIMENSIONS, and the artists; photos of their work, details on the materials used, and artists’ statements.

In an effort to encourage thoughtful discussion and dialogue around the jurying process, the SCC invited artists whose work was submitted but not among the 35 selected for DIMENSIONS to participate in The Jury’s Out exhibition at Affinity Gallery. Two public discussions were held as part of The Jury’s Out and were natural extensions of talks that began with the DIMENSIONS jurors’ public critique session.

• What does it mean to be a juror?
• How are jurors selected?
• What qualifies someone to be a juror, especially for DIMENSIONS?
• How do the personal biases of a juror affect the selection process?
• Would the pieces selected for DIMENSIONS be different if there were another set of jurors?
• What process did this year’s jurors use to decide?

These questions lead to other discussions.

• How can we improve the DIMENSIONS process?
• How can we give artists who have submitted work more opportunity for one-on-one with the jurors?

In response to some of the discussions, the SCC is now considering several ideas for the next DIMENSIONS exhibition.

• Allow only one submission per person. Will this result in higher quality work because individual artists will have to jury their potential submissions in advance?
• By reducing the number of submissions there may be an opportunity for jurors to have short, one-on-one talks with the artists. Will this make approaching a juror less stressful and result in a meaningful critique and improve the work by the artist?
• Keep the names of the jurors secret until after the jurying session. Will this prevent artists from tweaking their work to appeal to specific juror’s tastes or aesthetics?

At the end of the day DIMENSIONS is one of the very few juried exhibitions where the jurors have the privilege and enjoyment of viewing the work in person (not just from digital images). We are fortunate to have the opportunity to have our work judged by our peers in the Fine Craft world.

We invite you to continue the dialogue and submit your articles, essays or letters to the SCC. Address them to Amanda Bosiak at scc.memberservices@sasktel.net.

Together we can ensure that DIMENSIONS continues to reflect the vitality of Saskatchewan’s Fine Craft community. As we go forward let us be prepared to embrace change.

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world.
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
~Margaret Mead

The views in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the Saskatchewan Craft Council. The Saskatchewan Craft Council reserves the right to edit all content submitted to Talking Craft.