When it comes to art, anything goes. There is no right or wrong, no formula for completion, no expectation for its design. It is, because it was made to be, a raw expression of our minds. A limited glimpse of the limitless capabilities of the imagination. How is it then that we quantify it? How does one person’s expression, one person’s art, stand before another’s? In the artist world, it’s by being juried.
To be juried is as the name tends to imply, to be judged by a panel for review. For artists it typically means a panel composed of professors, lecturers, and collectors considered experts in the appreciation of fine art. Although it is still rather subjective, in this way there is some level of accordance on the recognition given to different artists. As an artist you WANT to be juried.

So, Captured Sky has started on that journey; the journey to becoming a juried art form. One of our first steps on the path was to register with ‘Juried Art Services’ online. Juried Art Services was the world’s first and most advanced Digital Jurying and application system. It allows artists to create portfolios to submit to jurors and jurors a self-paced format in order to review portfolios. It is the most efficient and proven method available for the artists, shows and jurors to share and judge works.

After joining and creating a portfolio, I could now browse the selection of upcoming competitions. Since our goal lately has been not only to become juried but also to spread the outreach of our work I decided The National Art Encounter 2015 comp looked like a good place to start. This competition called for entries across the US, awarded six cash prizes, and included a brick and mortar exhibition at The von Liebig Art Center in Naples, Florida. All win, win, WINS! This would mean not only that our work would be seen in the context of other national artists but also have its first opportunity at being displayed at a live action art gallery! And hey, having cash prizes doesn’t hurt either 😛
This particular competition was being juried by one, Dr. Carol Damian. As the contest rules described, “Dr. Carol Damian is Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Art History and the Past Director and Chief Curator of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University. She is a graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts and received her Master of Arts degree in Pre-Columbian Art and her Ph.D. in Latin American History from the University of Miami. A specialist in Latin American and Caribbean Art, she teaches classes in Pre-Columbian, Colonial, Spanish and Contemporary Latin American Art, Modern Art surveys and Women in Art.” With such an impressive resume, it sounded like it would be quite an honor to be deemed credibly in her eyes.

So, I submitted our portfolio to the jury pool. Having never participated in such a competition I was pretty unsure what sort of expectations to have. In fact, as it turns out, I was pretty unsure how to even read our application status after submission. It took about a month but I eventually received an email to check our status. I logged into our service account and, as I mentioned before, had no idea how to read the application. Were we accepted? Were we not? All that appeared next to the portfolio was a little green checky mark.

Which, granted, did seem promising but I didn’t want to get my hopes up just yet. After much double clicking and a trip to the desktop (since my phone couldn’t open the response letter anyway) I finally reveal THIS!

Sampson’s invitation for inclusion in the exhibition!!! YAY!!!!
This is for sure a big step for Captured Sky as a whole. From this point on, we are officially a juried art form. And exciting still is the upcoming exhibition that Sampson will be shown in over the following month! This is a big BIG deal for us and we can’t wait to see what sort of new folks we’ll be meeting and getting to share the sky with because of it. We’re looking forward to sharing more with you guys as we prepare for the upcoming exhibition and Sampson’s journey to Naples!