BEHIND THE SCENES:
PREPARATIONS FOR A FOFA-MEAPO CONCURSO
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2018 concurso participants with their certificates |
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FOFA-MEAPO’s 6th young folk artist competition will take place in August, 2022 and the exhibition featuring its winning pieces will open in February, 2023. Most people become aware of our contests when we inaugurate the exhibition and present the professional catalog featuring winning artists and their pieces. They do not realize that these public events are the product of many people’s labor over more than a year’s time. To convey what’s involved behind the scenes in preparing for a concurso, we draw on memories and photos of our five prior competitions (2008, 2011, 2014, 2016, and 2018).
FOFA’s young artist competitions are undertaken in collaboration with the Museo Estatal de Arte Popular Oaxaca (Oaxaca State Museum of Popular Art, MEAPO), led by ceramics master artist Carlomagno Pedro Martínez and his right-hand director of operations, Fernando Pedro Fabián. Every step of FOFA’s planning is done in close consultation with them.
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Carlomagno Pedro Martínez |
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The multi-faceted process begins when FOFA’s board, which meets monthly -- in-person at the New York home of Arden Rothstein prior to the pandemic, and virtually since then -- decides it is time to begin planning another competition. |
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A monthly in-person FOFA board meeting in 2013 |
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First FOFA commits to raising the necessary money -- a budget of approximately $37,000. This is made possible by the support of FOFA’s 200+ loyal supporters. Funds cover the many wide-ranging components of this venture:
- Advertising within Oaxaca for the competition and exhibition with postcards, posters and banners displayed in community locales, radio spots, newspaper releases, and electronic announcements;
- Grants to MEAPO to cover expenses, such as for the award ceremony that takes place after judging, and the exhibition opening and catalog presentation five to six months later;
- Prize money for the artists (in 2018 approximately 65 artists received a financial award); and
- Production of a museum-quality exhibition catalog that profiles the artists and their work. Costs include:
- Transportation within Oaxaca for the photographer and volunteer interviewers;
- Payment to our portrait and art photographer, graphic designer, and FOFA’s administrator in Oaxaca; and
- High quality printing, making this publication a valuable promotional tool for the artists’ work and a source of pride for each artist.
Staffing of the Concurso Process
Nearly all of the labor for young artists’ competitions is donated by volunteers. Members of the FOFA Board act as project managers. MEAPO donates the labor of its staff, which includes considerable administrative assistance -- in the planning and logistics of registration of submissions, the judging event, the award ceremony, and the exhibition inauguration – all at their building in San Bartolo Coyotepec, outside of Oaxaca City.
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FOFA volunteers from the US, and the devoted international and Mexican judges -- known for their expertise in folk art and their commitment to the artistic community of Oaxaca -- all generously pay for their own transportation and lodging. Additional FOFA volunteers in Mexico donate their time and transportation costs to interview artists to create the text for the exhibition catalog.
Choosing a Contest Theme
In consultation with MEAPO, the FOFA Board chooses a competition theme sufficiently broad to permit interpretation by artists working in the many genres of folk art (ceramics, textiles, decoratively painted woodcarving, and more). “Finding Hope Through Art,” the theme of the 2022 competition selected in December, 2021, struck all of us as fitting as we watched the inspiring perseverance of the artistic community in Oaxaca over nearly two years of the COVID pandemic.
Promotional Campaign to Announce a Concurso
Once FOFA and MEAPO agree on the dates for registration of pieces, judging, and the award ceremony, and the text to convey the competition rules, Mariana Pedrero, a FOFA Board member in Mexico City, graphically designs announcement materials: digital files and printed posters, postcards and banners.
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These are completed four to five months in advance of the submission date to give artists plenty of advance notice. |
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Contest announcement posters |
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Promoting the competition to young artists in Oaxaca is fundamental to the project’s success. This is why we engage every possible avenue and begin promotion 3-4 months ahead of the deadline for submissions to ensure that artists have enough time to create pieces specifically interpreting the designated theme of the contest. MEAPO holds a press conference to announce the competition. Fernando Pedro Fabián also does extensive messaging on Facebook and Instagram and records radio spots and messages, some of which will boom out of loudspeakers mounted to vehicles in remote towns. FOFA’s administrator in Oaxaca, Gina Barrionuevo, works by email and WhatsApp to reach our known artists. |
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FOFA hires a person to travel to rural crafts villages surrounding Oaxaca City to place postcards and posters in central locations, such as churches, community centers, markets and town squares. This year’s capable driver, Rodrigo Cruz, has been introduced to local officials by key artists in each town, which enhances the distribution of these materials. |
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Rodrigo Cruz distributing contest announcements
to the pueblos surrounding Oaxaca City
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Announcement posted in Mitla |
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Another new feature this year is short videos – created by our able collaborator Diego Morales. Past participants speak about how beneficial their competition participation has been in order to encourage newcomers. |
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Artists’ Registration of Pieces
Several months in advance, FOFA and MEAPO edit registration documents, artists’ letters of agreement, guidelines for judges and other printed materials to be filled out and/or distributed when artists enter their pieces in the contest.
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Registration of pieces for the 2018 contest |
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The four days when participants personally deliver their entries to MEAPO are long and hectic for the museum staff and FOFA volunteers. We make sure that all registering artists have completed their documents and that their handwriting is legible, at times interviewing them to obtain essential details: their contact information, the title of their piece, the artist’s statement about the technique and meaning of their piece, and its relationship to the theme of the competition. Over the next several days FOFA volunteers edit the artists’ statements for posting alongside each piece for judging day, and help record the information in a database; in 2018 this involved 137 artists, with over 30 fields of database information per artist.
Preparations for Judging Day
Once registration is closed, MEAPO staff go into high gear to arrange entered artwork for the purpose of viewing by judges. Each piece is labeled with its title, materials used, and brief artist’s statement; of course, in the interest of fairness artists’ names are not revealed. The night before judging day FOFA’s Board meets with the judges to review scoring procedures, including guiding concepts and the design of scoring sheets.
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Mariano Pineda (Oaxaca City) and Marta Turok (Mexico City) |
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Each piece is evaluated for its execution of traditional folk art techniques; creativity and artistic expression; and originality and experimentation of forms and uses or materials. On jurying day, FOFA volunteers tally judges’ scoring sheets to determine the prizewinners for first, second and third place, and the runner-up honorable mentions.
Award Ceremony
In the five days following the judging, MEAPO’s staff is busy contacting artists to notify them of having won a first, second or third prize, or honorable mention. In addition, they organize the outdoor award ceremony at MEAPO, which is attended by hundreds of people, and the indoor exhibition of all the entries. They print new labels indicating artists’ names, and awards and certificates of participation for all contestants are generated and signed.
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Audience at award ceremony |
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Monserrat Raymundo Sánchez at award ceremony 2018 |
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Jennifer Garcia López at award ceremony 2013 |
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Sara Garcia Mendoza at award ceremony 2011 |
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All winners and honorable mentions receive cash prizes and certificates indicating the type of prize they won; they will eventually be included in the catalog and on FOFA’s website as well. All artists who enter the competition receive FOFA-MEAPO certificates of participation.
Preparations for Exhibition Catalog
Once the judges' work is completed, FOFA volunteers fan out to multiple pueblos to interview each of the artists for the catalog to create brief narratives and to verify artists’ contact information and details about their pieces; artists who come from faraway pueblos are interviewed on the day of the award ceremony. Our extremely talented, intrepid art photographer, Otto Piron, begins his visits to the artists’ home workshops to document the artists at work; appointments are organized and assisted by Tino Jiménez López, who transports Otto to his many destinations. Otto also creates a “studio” in one of MEAPO’s rooms in which he captures the beauty of each winning piece. His labors go on for weeks, long after the FOFA Board has departed Oaxaca.
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Constantino (Tino) Jiménez López |
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Production of the Exhibition Catalog
Volunteers turn in their short profiles of the artists they interviewed in their preferred language, Spanish or English, and FOFA volunteers – complemented by a professional translator -- translate and edit the text. FOFA founder and President, Arden Rothstein, oversees the production of the catalog, working closely with graphic designer Mimi Bark and photographer Otto Piron. Contact information, a crucial raison d’etre for producing the catalog to help collectors find the artists, is double-checked for each artist. Completion of text, translations, proofing and layout takes several months. For logistical and financial reasons, the catalog has been printed in the United States.
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Exhibition Opening and Presentation of Catalog Featuring
Winning Pieces
Five to six months following judges’ selections, a several month exhibition of all winning pieces is inaugurated at MEAPO. Participating artesanos agree to leave their pieces at MEAPO, should they win, so that the exhibition can take place. This opening is accompanied by presentation of the catalog, copies of which are gifted to all winners for their pleasure and artistic promotion.
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Exhibition inauguration in 2018 |
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Alexis and Claudio Alberta Ojeda González at exhibition inauguration in 2013 with their winning piece |
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Announcement of Upcoming Workshops and Other Educational Opportunities for Contest Winners
The artists who are included in the catalog will be eligible for FOFA's subsequent educational programs. In the past these have included workshops in marketing, telling one's story, teaching about folk art, the cultural history of Oaxaca, and training in the use of social media as well as English tutoring. The workshops and courses to be offered are determined in the months following the competition, subject to FOFA's budget constraints and many other factors. They are announced either at the exhibition opening or by our administrative assistant in Oaxaca some months after that.Two organizations had made significant contributions to FOFA’s workshops; Los Amigos del Arte Popular (LADAP) has been especially generous in granting FOFA funds for a variety of workshops over many years and the Outreach Committee of the Oaxaca Lending Library has collaborated in offering English tutoring since 2019.
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Participants in 2015 Marketing Workshop with their Certificates |
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Sponsoring the young folk artist competitions has been one of FOFA’s main organizing principles over our 15 year history. We all agree with the assessment by our photographer, Otto: “My participation in FOFA's contests and behind-the-scene preparations have been a life changing experience for me. It started as a regular job, but then I met the artisans and their families in Oaxaca; I was immediately captivated by their humanity, graciousness, and talent.”
The exhibition opening and catalog presentation for the 2022 competition, organized by MEAPO, is scheduled for February 4, 2023. As in years past, FOFA volunteers will travel to Oaxaca for the celebration, carrying catalogs for distribution to the artists, MEAPO and to local bookstores. We would be delighted to have you join us!
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Please consider supporting FOFA's ongoing efforts to enable talented young Oaxacan folk artists to achieve their dreams and maintain sustainable livelihoods.
For a comprehensive look at FOFA's programs, visit our website at: www.fofa.us
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Thank you!
www.fofa.us info@fofa.us
275 Central Park West, #1-C New York, New York 10024
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