Meeting Minutes: Women in Focus, July, 8, 2009
Taken By: Valerie Gruner
Meeting presided over by our President, Gittel Price
Members and Guests Present: Anne Berry, Sara Lindkrantz, Andrea Brown, Valerie Gruner, Debra Booth, Jennie Helderman, Lisa Wade, Dawn Widjaja, Linda Rathke, Gail Des Jardin, Shiela Robinette, Phyllis Waugh, Jennifer Schwartz, Ruth Gogel, Vicki Bethel, Dana S. Kemp, Alicia Gelfond-Holtz, Jan Kapoor, Anna Brady, Eka Shapatana, Karen Varsha, Myrtie Cope, and Jaaz Jones.
Guest: Lisa Wade likes to photograph children and other subjects with a manual camera. She is new at seriously going forward with her photography. She found out about WIF from a lady photographer she met at Live After 5.
Members in Shows:
Shiela Robinette, Jan Kapoor, Anne Berry, and Valerie Gruner are in APG’s In Your Dreams show, running through August 28.
Phyllis Waugh and Gittel Price each have two pieces, and Debra Booth has four pieces in the Butterflies and other Pollinators Show at Chattahoochee Nature Center, then the show moves to the new museum in Roswell.
Ruth Gogel had two pieces juried into the South Cobb Arts Alliance National Show in Mableton in August.
Snapdragon Studio and Gallery:
Jennifer Schwartz is the owner of Snapdragon, located in the Tula Arts Center #K-2, and she announced a call for entries for an ACP affiliated show in October. Entrants may submit up to three pictures to the juried show. Two winners will be chosen, and those winners will be granted their own shows at Snapdragon.
For details and entry information, go to www.SnapdragonPhoto.com.
WIF ACP Events for 2009:
WIF XVI Juried Show:
The show will be held at Kai Lin Art, 800 Peachtree St., Suite A, Atlanta, GA 30308, 404-580-8430. The gallery will be taking a 40% commission on sold works. Thanks to Barbara Davis for finding this venue. Dates are October 23 - November 20, with the opening reception held at 7:00 on October 23. Our juror will be Julian Cox, Curator of Photography at the High Museum!
Entries are due at the August 12 meeting. Bring up to six 8x10 prints in an unmarked 9x12 envelope. Entry fee is $20. On the back of each image, write the number, 1-6, that corresponds to the number of the image on your entry form. To keep entries anonymous, we will assign a letter of the alphabet to each participant at the meeting. You will print that letter on your envelope, and on the back of each image. The packets of prints will be returned at the meeting on September 9.
If you cannot attend the August meeting, mail your entries to Gittel Price at 310 Birch Hollow Court, Roswell, GA 30075. Send them early enough to arrive by AUGUST 1st so that there will be plenty of time to prepare them for judging.
Drop off of accepted pieces will be on October 15. Images must be presented with white mats no larger than 16x20, and frames must be black. Also, unframed canvas pieces are acceptable.
WIF Artists’ Choice at Digital Arts Studio:
The location is 1082-B Huff Rd, Atlanta, GA 30318, 404-352-9779. The show will run October 1-31, with the reception being held October 10, 6:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Drop off one (this could possibly change to two) image the week of September 21. Images must be presented with white mats no larger than 16x20. Frames must be black. Unframed canvas pieces are also acceptable.
Entry fee is $20. Digital Arts will take no commission on sold pieces.
WIF: Without Borders (Additional Artist’s Choice):
This show will be held at the Stuart McClean Gallery, 684 John Wesley Dobbs, Suite A-1, Atlanta, GA 30312, 404-420-1320. Thanks to Lorikay Stone for finding this venue. The show will run October 2-23, with the opening reception being held on October 2, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
Drop off up to two images between September 30 and October 1, 12 noon-6:00 p.m. There are no size or framing requirements, so bring your large pieces for this one!
Entry fee is $20. The gallery will be taking a 25% commission on sold pieces.
Volunteers are needed for this event for hanging, and then for food and greeters at the reception.
FOR ALL PIECES IN ALL SHOWS - MAKE SURE THEY ALL HAVE SECURE HANGING WIRE ON THE BACK.
ALL ENTRY FORMS AND ANY FURTHER INFORMATION WILL BE POSTED ON THE WIF WEBSITE: www.WomenInFocus.us
Thanks to Debra Booth for composing new entry forms, and for writing down all the show details in the agenda. At the meeting, we were able to simply refer to the notes, and your secretary was able to copy them practically verbatim for these minutes.
Professional Critique with Kathryn Kolb:
Kathryn works with all traditional film, then makes traditional prints. Her work is fine art based nature photography that is realistic, abstract, and conceptual. She has a beautiful book out of her fine art nature photography, which you may read about at http://TinyURL.com/ldadxl (a link to Amazon.com). And, she will have a booth at the Decatur Book Fair. Kathryn has also opened the Photographer’s Print Studio which helps photographers make traditional prints. The Studio will soon be able to handle digital work.
Kathryn recommended researching a juror before entering a juried show, as this might add insight into what may appeal to the juror.
When a group of images were ready for the screen, Kathryn first asked for a sentence from the photographer. She, then, looked at the group of images to get an overview; then, looked at the images one at a time, commenting on each one. At the end of each group, she offered her opinion on what was the strongest of the images.
She said she was a right-brained visual person.
Kathryn believes many elements come together for a successful photograph: the aesthetically pleasing, the overall read of feeling or form, and the originality of the image. The feeling of having seen the image before is not desired.
Kathryn was amazingly attentive to each photographer’s work, each image, and she was clear and focused with her comments. It was an enormously effective critique.
Thanks to Gail Des Jardin for stepping in at the last moment to handle the technical aspects of showing our disks and drives on the big screen!