William Mayer of Hope College in Holland, Michigan invited me to jury the student show there this fall. I accepted the invitation and traveled to Holland jury the work, give an artist talk, and of course to bounce around town in an inflatable suit. At 12:00 noon the doors of the gallery were locked and the slaughter began. Actually, since this was my first time serving as the juror of a show I approached the first cuts cautiously to avoid making a mistake. After eliminating the obvious ones the real work began. I wanted to have about 40 – 60 pieces in the final show in order to be somewhat inclusive yet selective. Throughout the process I took strolls through the reject room and only two pieces made it back into the show.
The judging began at noon and I gave a juror’s statement to the students at 3:30. The students asked lots of questions about why a work was in or out and I enjoyed discussing my reasoning with them. After the exchange we moved to the auditorium where I gave a talk about my work. Overall the experience was great and I look forward to serving as the juror in other shows in the future.
The next day I busted out You Wear What I Wear to take a spin around town. I marched through campus and along the shops lining downtown. People came out of the stores to find out what was going on while Billy told them that it was the H1N1 virus.
