By Hand - An International Craft Nouveau Competition

Thank you to Mary Tess Mayall and all the artists for submitting their artwork in this year’s exhibition By Hand – An International Craft Nouveau Competition. It is an honor and great responsibility as a juror to review the many submissions and then choose the final selections for awards. My goal when reviewing work is to consider the craft skills and the concepts presented in each piece consistent with the exhibition goals. In addition, the materials, craftsmanship, and composition should uniquely express a singular “voice” of the artist. Ultimately, for an award, the selected work must best represent the artist, the exhibition and clearly engage the audience.

I strongly encourage artists to appreciate that fabulous photos are key to successfully submitting work to exhibitions, but I also understand that some work is difficult to fully capture in a photo. For this reason, I intend to select the award-winning work when visiting the exhibition in person and am grateful that this is possible.

I truly empathize with artists who submit work for an exhibition – it requires a willingness to take a risk. It is an investment of your time and money, but it should also be viewed as a potential growth experience and opportunity to obtain professional feedback about your work. Therefore, I am offering to correspond with any artist/maker who wants feedback for their work as a growth experience in developing your artistic expression. Likewise, I encourage viewers of the exhibition to personally engage with the artists and makers about their work either at the exhibition opening, or at another time.

At the exhibition opening, I look forward to seeing the artwork and meeting the artists in person.

About Harriete Estel Berman

Harriete Estel Berman uses post consumer, recycled materials to construct jewelry, Judaica to sculpture with social commentary. Berman's art work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa. Her work has been acquired for the permanent collections of 16 museums including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Detroit Institute of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.