Welcome to our series of interviews with artists who are making a difference in their communities. My primary goal is to inspire you with living examples of people who make a living in any economy and who consider being an artist a real job and valid choice of profession.

The Backstory of a Juror's Inside Story

©Nola McConnan aoca aestc

Nola McConnan has summered in Muskoka, Canada since 1953 when her father bought an empty lot in Brackenrig, Ontario. There she learned that girls can build anything, swimming is fun, boating without motors is best, reading is exciting and art is the best profession
 
Nola has explored the lakes, by recalcitrant Dispro, Canoe, Kayak and Rowboat. Muskoka's many animals have provided many subjects for many images over many years. A representational figurative visual artist, she now makes her home in Toronto. Nola works in egg tempera, watercolour, graphite or pen & ink.

Shunning galleries, she built her steady career travelling the continent attending horse shows.

After a long absence, taken to complete 1250 watercolour images examining North America's major professional sports leagues heritage uniforms and venues, Nola returned to her favourite subjects in 2009: horses, dogs and cats and other domestic animals. In 2011 she added lino block prints to her repertoire.

Nola's 2011 project "ABC Muskoka" includes a keepsake sized book, a large size copy suitable for libraries, a poster (images only), an exhibit of the original works, a full sized hand made book, and workshops to demonstrate and create hand made books using ancient techniques.

Pictures are the original visual communication. Letters are required for words, whether texting, tweeting or even writing a story. Nola loves both and combines them to examine Muskoka through the old fashioned method of hand pulled relief block print images made into a new fashioned electronically produced book.

After reading A Juror's Inside Story, Nola contacted me.

"Hi Aletta,

"I am the artist who introduced the juror's document with hard copy of criteria that are defined and score sheets to the land of juries at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. It is my dream that this system becomes the norm for all juried events in Canada no matter what the level.

"The scored jury system grew from my background in the horse industry. There scored opinions are common in several different disciplines. I knew that with dressage the riders are as interested in 'what' the judge thinks as they are in 'where' they placed. They use the feedback to improve their rides. This is especially important in the musical freestyles (kür) where there is no set test. Artistry, music and imagination make or break to the top performers.

"After having endured a couple of visual art juries, both as juror and juried, I felt there simply had to be a better way to judge even at peer reviews in the world of visual art. I created a scoring system in response. The scored system forces the event/jury to define what they are seeking, set criteria. It then gives the jurors a clear method for feedback. I tested the system in a couple of locations before I introduced it into the Fair. At the Fair I was responsible for fairly distributing a huge culture grant to the artists. I felt that a $500.00 Cdn. hanging fee meant we had to be able to defend the jurors' opinions. All of the artists in that event gave me positive feedback and thanked me for the hard copy jurist sheets.

"I've been working as a professional visual artist since 1967. I say this because making pictures paid a good part of my fees through Ontario College of Art. I've had a varied career, retail store planning design and installation, graphic design and chief elf for shopping centres, fine artist and finally author and artist.

"I've known Gary Smith for several years through The Riverdale Art Walk. He is a great asset to that organization. I'm so glad to see he used hard copy and scored criteria for Art in the Park in Scarborough, Canada."

Cheers,
Nola McConnan aoca aestc
Merriweather Studio
www.merriweatherdesignstudio.com

P.S. I love the title of your book.

You can read related articles about juried shows here:

Enter Juried Shows the S.M.A.R.T. Way

Three Good Reasons to Enter Juried Competitions

The Ins and Outs of Juried Shows