A W A R D S   1 9 9 9

B E S T  B A Y  A R E A  A R T I S T S '  P O R T F O L I O

 The WINNERS    The JURORS   The SUBMISSIONS   The COMMENTS   Awards MANAGER

THE ARTISTS WHO WON:

GOLD
Damon Hildreth
sculpture
SILVER
David Ludwig
fabric/silk painting
BRONZE
Amy O'Connell
jewelry		 image3012
HONORABLE
MENTION

Alyssa H. Watson
digital art, illustration

Becky Olvera Schultz
mixed-media

Chad Greene,
digital art

James Radke
mixed media, photography

Malcom Ruthven
printmaking

 The vote was very close, and
many wonderful artists scored
right at the top of the list. So
we created a special category
of  Honorable Mention to
recognize those artists.
The jurying process was difficult
but inspiring, due to the high
level of professionalism of
these artists.

THE ARTISTS WHO SUBMITTED   ^

 

THE JURORS  ^

Our heartfelt thanks go to our Jurors who spent many hours visiting the submitted sites, suffering through long downloads and numerous crashes. They put a lot of thought into their choices and made specific, helpful comments, from which we've taken the sample below. We hope that these comments will help our artists improve their portfolios and promote their work.
Alan Bamberger
creative consultant; columnist, American Artist
ArtBusiness.com

Johnny Davis
Johnny Davis moved to San Francisco from North Carolina to experience the multicultural diversity of the Bay Area. In 1985 he began a commercial photography business which specialized in shooting artist's portfolios, which inspired him to develop his own fine art photography. In 1992 Johnny founded ARTwork Magazine to fulfill promotional and educational needs not being met by other art organizations. The Magazine became the springboard for the artist-run organization which now provides exposure, support, and sales for both emerging and established artists. Today ARTwork represents 150 Bay Area artists through rotating exhibits in over 30 venues which sell and rent local artists' work.
ARTwork

Arabella Decker
website design, curator, sculptor, painter
"I was born and raised in Chicago and its suburbs. Through my youth I became aware that I saw life differently -- without depth perception, with an awareness of afterimage color, of black and white and double vision.  While haunting museums I became hooked on art as the validation of a unique visual and emotional perspective. Art challenged me to chase my own personal connective communication. I live in the Bay Area where I am working to meet the resonating goal that the visual arts dare us to create."

Li Gardiner
Li Gardiner is a fine artist who works in multiple media, including mixed-media collage, oil on canvas and digital software. She exhibits her work in galleries and public spaces throughout the Bay Area. Li has also been a graphic design professional since 1978, creating advertising layouts and editorial illustration, art-directing publications and managing print production, but making art and teaching are her passions. She teaches digital design and imaging and prepress classes at San Francisco State, and is the Dean of Faculty at the Center for Electronic Art. Li founded Artist Resource in 1997 to educate, connect and promote Bay Area artists and writers.
The Artist's Eye Gallery

Cay Lang
artist; creative coach; author of Taking the Leap
Taking the Leap

Tony Reveaux
Tony Reveaux is a San Francisco-based consultant, writer and columnist who has been involved in the development and critical reportage of art and multimedia since the 1970s. As editor, he served with The Nob Hill Gazette and Computer Publicity News and authored "Cool Mac Clip Art Plus!" for Hayden Books.
Tony has designed and produced multi-image visuals for theater, dance and opera and "Cinematic California" for the Oakland Museum. He has served as Director of the Yale Film Festival, initiated and co-curated "Retrieving the Future: Interactive Narrative in Multimedia," the first multimedia exhibition at the Pacific Film Archive, University Art Museum Berkeley, and taught film and media studies at UC Santa Cruz, the San Francisco Art Institute, Sonoma State University and San Francisco State University Multimedia Studies Center.

Yarrow Summers
Yarrow Summers is a Professional Personal Coach trained through Coach University. She has worked as an artist/designer for over 20 years and has managed galleries in Santa Barbara, Carmel and Mendocino, California. Yarrow moderates the "Artists' Survival Tips" forum for Artist Resource, where she answers questions about working with galleries, pricing artwork, art as a business, self-promotion, creativity, and inspiration
ArtCoach.com

Sarah Vinci
Sarah Vinci is currently the director of ACCI gallery. She has received numerous awards and works in the following media: photography; digital imagery; mixed media; image transfer; and handmade books. She has been a curator, juror, grant writer, and art history researcher, and received a Bachelor of Arts from the College of Fine and Performing Arts.
ACCI Gallery

AWARDS MANAGER  ^

Natasha Epperson is a true heroine. She maintained the Submissions and Jurors pages, created the Submissions form and Jurors forms, and tallied over 600 separate scores with a database. She checked and re-checked the scores between 36-hour shifts as an Emergency Medical Technician and managing her exploding photography business.

"I've lived and breathed drawing and anything else artistic since I could pick up a marking implement or figure a way to create with my hands -- illustrations, wood working, print making, sign painting, photography. . . Right now I make my living as an ambulance paramedic, and use my art as an outlet and hobby. I live with my husband of 4 years, and 4 cats: Misty, Tori and Oscar and Phelix."

Our sincere thanks go to Natasha and her husband Charles.

email Natasha Epperson  |  go to her website

THE COMMENTS  ^
"The small thumbnails were beautiful, but the enlargements were disappointing -- ragged and low-resolution. No info about each piece, no prices, media, not even a title! This brought down the overall score."

"This site was simple, with subdued colors and small text, but very elegant. The images of the art work had exceptional color and resolution, and yet downloads were surprisingly fast! Fantastic imagery and quality of work. Unfortunately no prices or other purchasing/commission info."

"The images of the work were too ragged and low-res. And there was no information about the artist at all."

"On the front page, the bad-looking white edges on the transparent GIFs were a turn-off. However, interior images were detailed and intriguing. The  text of the artist's ‘statement’ was too large and yellow, and filled the entire right frame no matter what piece I chose. It became monotonous and detracted from the work."

"This site crashed Netscape twice. Very bad! Will not return."

"This artist's pages were part of a large organization's site. While the site design was very clean and functional, it didn't reflect any artistic individuality, nor was enough work shown."

"Great Flash animation and sound. Really nice typography and attention to design. Very professional presentation. But no info about services or description of work/client/projects/media."

"The person who submitted the site has only a small amount of work on the site . But the artist's partner did the bulk of the art work. This was too confusing."

"Very interesting group site. But it's unclear whether the artist and the organization are the same. Unclear whether this constitutes an online portfolio for the artist or whether the work comes from a group, since there was no info about each piece."

"The only way to get to any page was to go back to the home page each time. This artist got zero for navigation."

"This site was simple, attractive, lean. Extremely easy to navigate. Rough, textural art work with beautiful color. Beautiful presentation."

"It took WAY too many clicks and page downloads to find the art thumbnails, about four levels in, and then there were no enlargements available anyway. What a disappointment."

"Overall, I found it an interesting experiment and I look forward to seeing the results, as well as the next incarnation!"