This week an invitation to participate in one of the larger international shows landed in our mail-box. It will be no surprise for those who know us that I immediately checked how the categories were defined this time. For those who do not know us I should perhaps say that most of the quilts leaving our studio are the results of our joint efforts. We are the couple from France, who make those quilts, you know…

Anyway, that is not important really, but you will all now understand why I checked if the so-called “Two-Person” category was included in the list. It was!

Were I surprised?

No, not really – rather a little disappointed that the organizers of this relatively large show (and they are unfortunately not alone) had not yet come to terms with the county fair dilemma of fairness vs. unfairness if more than one person contribute to a quilt, or a piece of artwork, for that sake. I found it remarkable that they did not prioritize a cohesive show like the American Quilter’s Society (AQS) for their annual show – where the “Two-Person” category no longer exists.

You may now say: “Oh, Steen. I think you are biased on this issue”. Of course I am! And why is that?

Shows often group quilts in different categories for competition and exhibition purposes like representational, abstract, portraits, animals, contemporary, traditional, etc. This is how an auction or museum also would be grouping paintings in categories like impressionistic, post-modernistic, etc. – and this is fine!

But quilt shows often add the “Two-Person” category – and this is not fine!

Why is this not fine? Because in this category all types of artistic/decorative styles and representations are exhibited in a hopeless mess of traditional quilts, portraits, animals, contemporary and so on. Despite best efforts in hanging the pieces the result is a mess which leaves viewers confused and lost as to what the fil-rouge/leitmotif in that particular exhibition is supposed to be.

Exhibitions focusing at the ART in textile art have for long abandoned this form of categorizing. They focus at the artwork per se and curate them to make the viewers’ visits to the exhibition as interesting an experience as possible.

Rather than being oriented towards the production flow of exhibited artworks/quilts, organizers of shows should for the sake of the viewers display the pieces in a cohesive and conceptually logical flow, which in case of competition aspects also would let the artworks/quilts compete at equal terms.

A messy hodge-podge grouping is not helpful to that end, neither for visitors nor judges, nor the quilts.

“But, a couple of cooperating artists do have an advantage against the solo working artist” you may say, hinting at the standing fairness issue. No, I do not think so, but this is for another week’s reflection where we could reflect about how many artworks/quilts are actually made in total isolation – or reflect over how many artists/quilters do have a mentor or discuss ongoing projects in art critique groups or quilting guilds, or with the friends or with the family?

As said, this is for another week…

Burda Patchwork magazine will in its next French issue feature an article about us and our artwork. The article will be based upon a written interview, which we concluded in the past week. The editor formulated a series of ingoing questions from where we jointly worked in an iterative mode of answering, questioning further, answering etc. – until both parties were content with the result.

Since the end of the nineties we have given interviews for different types of media, mostly magazines and to a lesser extent video/TV – some conducted in real-time, others through exchange of questions and answers, as in the case mentioned above.

Typical questions we are faced with centre around the same basic interest in knowing how we work together, who does what, which techniques we apply and how long time it takes for us to make a piece of artwork. Complementary questions relate to our personal backgrounds, when we started our artistic parcours, whether we have a formal education in fine art etc.

Serious editors make an effort to give their interview a special touch, make it different and maybe better relate it to the style and readership of his or her editorial base. That is where it begins to become interesting for us, in particular when this is done through reasoned questioning. A pre-requisite for asking reasoned questions is that the editor has reflected personally over our artwork, its style, graphical components, predominant palette of colours, etc.

Implicitly such reflections provide us with a valuable feedback and make it interesting for us to participate in an interview.

Finally, we also reflected over how we today answer the set of typical questions in comparison to 10 years ago. Have we changed? Yes, we have changed. How? If you ask us, we would say that our points of view have matured, been focused and gotten sharper…

But maybe this question is not for us to answer, but rather for editors and their readerships.

When I had lunch with colleagues in a restaurant in the Quartier des Halles in Paris the other day, it was not until after I had ordered my entrée and plat principal – the choice of dessert was postponed until later – that I noticed the details of the interior decoration. Maybe it took so long because the Christmas decoration was rather prominent – maybe because I was hungry and focused more on the menu and the delicious olives and crisp bread the served right away…

Anyway, the reflection I would like to share here relates to the way the main theme for the interior decoration had been implemented – it featured dogs in the form of porcelain figures, dogs depicted in drawings and watercolours etc. and dogs depicted in oil paintings. Whereas the figures, drawings and watercolours included dogs as we are used to see them, the oil paintings had this strong feeling of déjà vu and were all particular in the sense that they depicted persons with dogs’ heads.

The feeling of déjà vu stemmed from the fact that the motifs seemed all to be replicas of 19th century painters.

As entrée I did not choose escargots avec cèpes in a creamy sauce seasoned with garlic, as 3 of my colleagues did – so it was only after I had finished my salad with grilled scrimps on a bed of lettuce and artichokes that I started to reflect on copyright issues in the context of basing one’s artwork on approximately 90% of other artists’ work. I also thought about the pleasure the artist may have had, or not, by using known motifs in a series of works, which would eventually end up in a restaurant.

The latter question I answered myself by regarding it as a commissioned decoration project, the purpose of which was to establish a theme for the interior being very “French” in appearance and with a touch of amusement. It seemed to work very well and lent the rooms with a pleasant and much “Parisian” atmosphere, which would go down well with any tourist, and which also matched very well the classic menu.

Over an aperitif Inge reminded me later in the evening that art students copied masterpieces at museums as part of their education. I remembered to have seen this even at Le Louvre so I put the first question to rest by thinking that maybe there were parts of the copyright law that allowed for copying of such older masterpieces in certain cases.

Inge continued, however, the series of reflections by posing the question: Having seen such replicas with dogs’ heads once, how would one then look at the real works?

Taking it further from this specific case, we started to reflect in general over how we would react by seeing an original piece of artwork after having seen it partially transformed by another artist.

Would we say: “Oh, this is the paining or sculpture that we saw there or there transformed in this or that way!” before we gave the piece of artwork a fair chance to speak for itself, invite us to relate to it and maybe think it further? Would we forever be biased by modified replicas we had seen before?

The answer is: “Probably Yes”!

We could also reverse the vantage-point by asking: How would we feel if we saw one of our own artworks transformed by somebody else in such way?

Now, that is interesting…

Recently we submitted registration forms for a major juried international exhibition – the usual way on paper forms; but instead of slides, images had this time to be provided in high resolution on CDs.

It made us wonder why a high resolution of 300 ppi was asked for, since the primary purpose of the application/registration is to support the jurying process, which only requires low resolution images of 72 ppi. OK, an answer could be that by requesting images in high resolution, they would be readily available for the organizers to print catalogues of selected works (approx. 50% in this case) – and a 2^nd round to ask the selected artists for high resolution images would then not be necessary.

So, this saves administration for the few, but burdens the many, who all have to get the CDs ready and handle the logistics and costs of shipping.

The digital way can facilitate the whole process for all parties. Artists can easily and at basically no cost submit application forms, pay the related fees, and provide images at the low resolution required for the jurying process, even with dimensions ready for the projectors to be used. Logistics of entry data would be very manageable for the exhibition organizers to sort and prepare for the jurying process and lay-out of catalogues.

Subsequently, the organizers could invite the (lucky) selected artists to email high resolution images of the selected works only. Image requirements should be commensurate with the planned quality for printing of catalogues etc. and organizers should dimension the capacity of their internet servers accordingly, so that they can receive the resulting data files.

No land or air shipment would be required by the many, and only the selected artists would eventually have to ship their artworks as usual.

OK, we are not experts in the field, but to us it seems that a holistic approach to the digital way of organizing calls for entries and submission of proposals by artists would rationalize the whole process dramatically – both for the many, and for the few – and, very importantly in the context of international exhibitions, all artists would be at equal terms as regards costs and dead-line.

It would be great if exhibition organizers made such implementation of the digital way their New Year resolution.