Selecting
How do you go about selecting artists from all the applications you get? Putting yourself in the shoes of the selector, as opposed to the applicant (we’ve all had the dreaded thin rejection envelope after all) is an interesting exercise. For one, you get to see how other people present themselves and their ideas, which is very enlightening in itself – and also you can test your own subjective reactions to things like font choices, illustration on the sides of home designed letter heads, handwriting, cds that wont open on your computer, no phone number supplied etc etc. Presentation is obviously very important, however one person's good presentation is another persons over frilliness or poor design! Sometimes the commitment and enthusiasm shine through in a simple hand written postcard – so I guess there are no hard and fast rules I can offer except be honest.
I tried to get beyond such trivial style judgements and concentrate of the idea that was being put forward, looking for original and honest statements of intention and projects that had room for growth and change – ideas that had the spark of intelligence and took an unusual approach. I was also looking for something that tells me that this person is capable of delivering what they say they can deliver. So track record and experience count to an extent. Having said that, the projects that I’ve worked on over the years have always given opportunities to people with less experience as well as more established artists.
Eventaully, after much deliberation, and with the help of some of the CN4M coordinators, we made our final selection from a submission of around 30 applications.
The artists taking part are: Andrew Wilson, Hafsah Naib, Jo Lewington, Simon Grennan & Christopher Sperrandio, Joe Richardson, Jil Moore, and William Titley.
Since the selection process, I have met with each artist once, mainly to meet up and get to know everyone and offer what information I could about CN4M.
