Ribbons for Resin: Is the Toy Art Community Ready to be Judged?
|
Over the last week, I’ve watched people who participated in Toy Art Gallery’s Juried Resin Show rechristen it as a celebration of the spectrum of resin. Initially, this struck me as retroactive damage control: Musicians don’t enter Battle of the Bands for a jam session, and contestants don’t ship off to Survivor to bask in the diversity. The TAG show was publicized as a Juried event, but barely anyone involved seemed to know (or care) about the competition. During and immediately after the show, I found this very frustrating, but then it dawned on me: The resin toymaking community doesn’t want to be judged.

Artists and toymakers who entered TAG’s show didn’t know what they were competing for, nor did they know how their work would be judged. And they weren’t alone: The judges weren’t given any criteria until the day before the show, and this happened only after I requested it. Why me? Ask TAG I guess. I met the show’s curators in 2008 while producing a series of online toy contests called custoMONDAYs. Excited by the possibilities of resin, in 2009 I flew to Phoenix and covered the first Resin Collective. In 2010, I got to work with 10 of my favorite resin toy artists when I curated my own Resin Showcase. That same year, I attended Toxic Catalyst. I continue to write about resin on a regular basis. You can view the latest articles here.
The Juried Resin Show’s organizers, Sean of MONSTREHERO and Aaron of Uh Oh Toys, are both talented resinheads who had the support of a toy art-friendly gallery. So what the hell went wrong???

Here are two sentences from the show’s press release that get to the root of the show’s problems:
Toy Art Gallery is proud to announce the Open Call Resin Toy Juried Show! All entries will be judged by a prestigious panel of toy art connoisseurs and winners will be awarded fantastic prizes in a variety of categories!
There was confusion over the phrase “open call,” leading some artists to feel like they were in fact invited or that the show was a “Resin Invitational”. Despite TAG’s marketing efforts, some of the participants didn’t seem to know the show was going to be judged. On a similar note, the show was billed as an open call for “resin toys,” but the judges were billed as “toy art connoisseurs.” Semantics, perhaps, but this distinction between toys and art turned out to matter. “Fantastic prizes”? At the time the winners were announced, prizes remained unknown. “Variety of categories”? There were no categories, unless you count: good, bad and godawful.

Several key resin artists were absent from the roster. Some told me that they don’t do open call shows and others just didn’t have time. But how do you have a resin spectrum without Le Merde or Argonaut Resins? And where were TAG regulars Emilio Garcia and Cris Rose? I would have also liked to see Sean and Aaron represented. And this is just sad: Out of eighty pieces, not one of them was by a female toymaker.

Another thing: contests, by definition, are events in which people compete for victory or supremacy. I was surprised that very few participants in this show wanted feedback, and even more surprised that my fellow judges weren’t the least bit interested in providing it. I didn’t enter the 5th grade spelling bee because I thought it would be fun to sound out “insouciant” with a bunch of other nerdlings. Likewise, I wouldn’t have been able to exit the stage insouciantly without an explanation of my error from the jury. What if they’d just told us we were all winners because at least we remembered to put on pants? I read a good quote from Guf, the San Diego-based tattoo artist who won an Honorable Mention:
I come from a generation when there was 1st 2nd 3rd etc. It made me try harder to put my best work forward, because I wanted to win! Too much of this grade school, everyone’s a winner, don’t hurt anyone’s feeling mentality nowadays.
I completely agree.

My final bone to pick: The work at the TAG show was paired with a jury who weren’t the creators’ peers. I like art and design, and I evaluated the pieces as if the makers’ intended the works to be seen as art or design objects. As it turns out, “art” was not the goal at all. Judged on art and design, the majority of the pieces in this show were abject failures. I felt embarrassed for the artists behind the winning pieces, as well as TAG’s owner, Gino Joukar, who is an art collector.

There were a few highlights in the show, and I agree with the pieces we collectively chose as winners. We judged each work by giving it a 1-5 score in the categories of Design, Creativity/Originality, Impact, Difficulty and Craftsmanship. 25 points was the highest individual score, and 125 meant a perfect score across all five judges. Arbito‘s Cosmic Hobo came the closest and won first place. The figure is creative, unique and impeccable. Paul Kaiju’s King Jinx took the second place, with only about 2/10ths of a point difference! C-Toys from Japan was a nice surprise for third place. Tattoo Royale’s fully articulated Jelly Larry got the honorable mention.

I would like to give out additional honorable mentions to: Gumliens, Bob Conge, Dead Hand Toys, Splurrt, Galaxy People, Sun8urn, Spencer Hibert, Abell Octovan and Toy Architects. Please go click on their sites and buy stuff they’re selling. I just might. For more photos from these artists, see the Flickr slideshow at the end of this post.

On that note, any millennials reading this post might want to check out now, because I’m from Generation-X, and it’s about to get real.

Some people say judging isn’t fair due to personal aesthetics, but really, why sugarcoat this? Before the doors opened, when the judges were evaluating the work, there was definitely an elephant in the room. Although no one spoke openly about it, that elephant was basically shitting on the shelves of the gallery. Whether or not people understood this was a contest, they knew it was a GALLERY. This was not gallery-quality work.

During the show, I made a point of asking attendees what they thought of various pieces. In a room full of people, you will always find someone who likes something, and I suppose that is a positive thing. However, honest opinions and constructive criticism are also very, very positive. This community lacks critical feedback, and it doesn’t seem to want it either.

The piece below, by Keenan Cassidy, has the distinction of receiving the lowest (single digits) score of the evening. Per Cassidy’s blog, he made a batch of Plastic Monsters last winter and offered them for sale at $20 each. As of June he “still had a number of toys left over,” which I guess is how he came to add a 1 to the asking price and enter a leftover in a Juried Resin Show for $120. This is what I’m talking about when I say that this show was not comprised of work made with the intention of, as Guf said, “putting my best work forward because I wanted to win.”

That said, there was at least one person who liked the Plastic Monster. Connell, who bought a half dozen pieces from the show, told me he found it “charming.” I tried to see it through his eyes, but “charming” is one of those words like when a realtor refers to a 300-square foot apartment as “cozy”. It’s a way to say something nice when being honest means being negative. It hit me suddenly that I’ve been blogging at a brick wall: I look at toys as a legitimate art form, but the majority of makers represented in this show are happy amateur hobbiests. There is nothing wrong with that. But it helped me come to realize that I am perhaps more of an art critic in training than a toy maven these days.

How much of personal opinion is based on taste vs. perception of talent? Above left is Isaac Hall’s Bottom Feeder, which was part of the TAG show. Above right is Studio Eccentrina‘s Puddlehead, which was not entered into the show. The two figures share passing similarities, but Avri Rosen-Zvi’s Puddlehead shows more skill and polish. Puddlehead is an expressive head that appears to be melting into a puddle. Bottom Feeder looks like the lumpy result of a rainy day at summer camp, right down to that generous sprinkling of glitter.
Critiques by Request
A few makers specifically requested that I critique their work. Here we go…

Above is one of three Prophet figures by Butch Adams. The sculpt itself fits well within what I’ve come to understand is a popular genre of intentionally crude resin monsters. That subject matter doesn’t really resonate with me, but my problem is more with the casting and painting. The hands and feet could have been sanded and cleaned for the show. The red and black paint within the monster’s wrinkles works, but the eyeballs and teeth look sloppy. The character itself brings up comparisons to Mark Nagata‘s Eyezon. Airbrush on soft vinyl seems to highlight the texture, spikes and eyes on Nagata’s character, whereas acrylic on resin feels heavy and dulling on Adams’ piece. I had the opportunity to meet up with Adams for lunch in San Francisco last month, and he came equipped with a small briefcase filled with toys. He showed me a cast resin “bullet” in a real metal casing he’d discovered during his very interesting day job. The piece had a nice, simple design and sense of history. I think other people would be impressed with that artifact and story.

Ben Mininberg created the only entry that combined three separate figures to form one complete piece. Their arrangement on TAG’s shelf fell a little short of Mininberg’s intended display, which didn’t help an outsider understand their relationship. The figures are part of a story about the aftermath of a science experiment gone awry, but there’s really no way to know that without some kind of text. Looking at it, I see an incongruous pairing of a battle-damaged robot and a metallic, biological-looking shiny thing. In the foreground, there’s this little David Cronenberg-ish bump. The pieces were painted nicely, but I had no idea what they had to do with each other at the time of the show. I also felt like since the execution was good, I’d have liked to see them cast as larger pieces.

These figures were fun to have in the show. Steven Erst contributed some levity with his Dirty Pizza Bat, Pizza Man and Drooling Gus figures. I like these. I like the weirdness and the color palette and the pizza. I thought about buying that Dirty Pizza Bat, but something held me back. It’s sloppy, and it doesn’t need to be. If he tightened up the sculpt and put more time into the casting, these could be awesome. I don’t accept “style” as an excuse for carelessness. Erst’s work reminds me of early Le Merde. The idea is there; he just needs to fine tune the craft.

Mikie Graham, I apologize for this crappy picture of Swampy, Chochinobake and Oni Baba. Graham’s three figures were all very different. Swampy is a Blamo Toys character I’ve seen rendered in a variety of mediums. Chochinobake paired translucent resin with light-up effects. Oni Baba is Graham’s original yokai character, hand-painted for the show. I overheard other judges and attendees of the show praising these pieces, in particular Swampy and Oni Baba. Keep doing what you’re doing! If I could put one thought in your head, it would be this: You have a unique fashion sense; I wonder what would happen if you tried approaching your toy art with that style, you know some of what is responsible for this or this. Just curious.

I’m familiar with Dodgrr‘s work mostly from bootlegs, so this may have been my first exposure to his original characters. I happen to know that he was casting pieces on the sidewalk the morning of the show, and I don’t want to assume anything, but these look rushed. The figure on the left is interesting. It doesn’t feel quite finished, but I could see it looking cool as a much larger sculpture. The figure on the right…looks like Sculpey. It doesn’t feel like a complete idea, which makes me wonder why he made a mold to cast it. Unless it’s pieces from existing molds for other characters that were combined here… Either way, sorry man, but it’s not working!

The work of Bob Conge (aka PlaSeeBo) was, sadly, out of place in this show. I gave Conge his highest scores because I think his art has impact and originality. Other judges docked points for bubbles or pockmarks that either I didn’t see or didn’t mind. Conge’s resins are identifiably his, and though missing in this instance, they usually come with a story. I felt each figure, Son of Sum, Stonewalker and Molezilla Tank, could hold its own as an art piece if removed from the Toy Art Gallery setting. This may sound cynical, but I question whether Conge should continue to participate in toy shows. His work is expensive and underappreciated in the context of the toy scene. Looking at pictures of these pieces now, I recall them standing there as if asking to be taken seriously at a show that was largely being treated as a joke. Bob Conge, if you’re reading this, perhaps I am projecting, but I know exactly how your figures felt.

This post is something of a curtain call for me. The biggest benefit I got from judging the TAG show was realizing that I like art and I like objects. I like toys most of all when they are also art objects. This is a shift in direction you have already been seeing reflected on my site. I’m not sure that the designer toy community is any more ready to be judged than the resin toy community, but I guess we’ll find out next month. See you at SDCC.
Great post man.I can tell how much heart and thought went into this and as a reader I appreciate that. It’s nice to be given enough credit to be talked to like an adult and that you have the courage to share thoughts that will, I promise you, not be popular, is refreshing. But from the frustration you clearly had with the show I can see growth in you and a sign that you gained a better understanding about what it is in this scene you appreciate and love most. That’s a great thing! At least you got something out of it.
My daughter was so tired after our trip from the Bay Area we left before I got to meet a few of you. I ended up rolling around on the floor with Paul Kaiju and Connell trading stuff from our bags of toys. I’m way into open critique, and always want to know what folk think about my work, but for me it’s all about trading toys with other toy makers. I like getting to meet people, and see what they make. I get so much from the social exchange of making resin toys. I wish I had met more of the folk there, but my kid needed some sleep. Thanks again, Jay E Moores from JEM TOY!
A-to-ZZZ range. Several cool pieces (besides the winners, I also like Toy Architect’s soft boiled hamster) but that 10th photo down…? Next time, bring a plastic bag and pick that shizit up. Did every single piece entered get displayed? It was nice that they included that Make A Wish Foundation kid’s piece.
In terms of the gallery event itself, If I had entered, I think I would have been pretty annoyed/disappointed with the lack of “jurying” and also the lack of “various categories”. If I enter a competition, I’m expecting to actually compete. Like, to win or lose. For some good reason.
In terms of the state of the toy world re: criticism, yeah, a lot of people dance on eggshells because sensitive personalities get their knickers in a knot over criticism. Also I think there’s this “you can’t upset the apple cart because ANYBODY you know in the scene could be a networking step to the TOP!” thing going on, too. That’s pretty irritating pansy stuff though, to me. And I’m a girl.
I often wonder too, because a lot of toy artists are truly “outsider artists” (i.e. unschooled), they’ve never really been exposed to critiques in a non-internet setting. If you have people whose opinions you trust, and they can give you well thought-out critiques about your art in a way that is meant to *help* you advance, it really can be helpful. Of course anybody can be full of shit too,and you can decide who you want to listen to. But there seems to be a real lack of thoughtful criticism on the interwebz; most of what I see either comes in the form of either some jerk saying jerky things because of some leftover gradeschool bully complex, or people just ass-kissing all over forums and such, saying “Dope, man” about any spraypainted blob they see, hoping to make friends and/or not rock the boat. Neither of these things counts as true critique/criticism in my book.
As toy artists I think we need to get over being butthurt and being so precious. People are going to have opinions, and people might even be forceful about them. At a Con last year I had a guy come up to me and tell me he thought my stuff was so awful he wanted to shoot it with a gun, then set it on fire. All you can do is laugh and move on.
I would like to see honest, helpful and thoughtful critique come into the scene, because it IS helpful, to both the artists and the collectors. An educated artist/collector base is healthy to the scene, and will only make it stronger and higher-quality.
I think that community and socializing is great. Getting together with like minded people and trying new things is a way I would like to spend my free time. That being said, I would not enter a juried show unless I was in it to win it. Too many of the competitions are a popularity contest nowadays.
A few months back I wanted to try my hand at resin, so I participated in Handmade toy swap. Got to talk to people about how they did it and what was hard. And guess what, some stuff was really cool and some stuff not. But it wasn’t JURIED. Want to know why you didn’t see my little resin at the TAG show? Because when I put my name on something I want it to be awesome. And most importantly because it would never have won. When I enter a competition, I want to win.
I completely agree with Amanda. Many self taught artists think they have proven themselves by being very talented and not needing an art education, but many fail to realize the advantage of art school isn’t about learning technique. The most valuable thing I took away from it was now only HOW to critique but also how to except it. Just telling someone a piece is bad or good doesn’t help anybody, but learning how to explain what isn’t working artistically takes some practice. Taking criticism can be a rough lesson, especially when you feel very strongly about your piece, but as my professor said “sometimes you have to kill your baby” which means, you have to grow and realize the piece you love may actually be crap, but that gives you the perspective to move forward and get better.
While artistic talent or desire may be innate, critiquing usually isn’t. I am grateful for my art school days of 3 hour 8am crits on a project I spent 3 weeks on. Sitting in a room of peers with some coffee and donuts and just talking about art is fun! I hope this community can come to embrace that aspect of art. It will only help us all grow and be better
Will have to leave my comment with you personal next time I see ya! ;D
oops! *personally
Loved this. I wish more artists would treat resin as a medium, rather than just a quick and easy way to make a reproduction of a one off of a sculpture made in something else. Resin has so many awesome qualities that I love over vinyl and clay – the nice finish, the capacity for really nice translucency/transparency, the weight…it seems silly to go to the effort and expense of making molds just to make something that LOOKS like summer camp Sculpey(and the final paint job always makes a huge difference).
I guess what I’m saying is that it’s clear when a piece is designed to be a resin piece(like that gorgeous porcelainish milky tone in Cosmic Hobo – so rad…), rather than when a piece is just sort of incidentally resin.
Agreed that I’d love to see more critique. I’ve been frustrated with the moniker of “toys” being used to describe things that can’t really be played with lately, but if we want to make “art,” then there’s got to be art criticism in the picture.
This article does do a pretty good job of pointing out the failings and disconnect between the contributors, venue, and jurists that have caused so much consternation in the past week.
More than the fact that the running of this show sounds pretty slapdash and last minute, I think the people like you or Matt Hisey or Spanky are still on a totally different wavelength from the intent of a lot of the people who submitted figures. Sure you’ve got guys like Spencer Hibbert or Sucklord or Toy Architects who are very much making design pieces and things they might expect to be considered ‘art’. The choice of judges entirely reflected this side of the equation. The problem to me is that, based on just about every resin maker that I directly interact with, resin is very much a medium where people can make toys and figures and playthings, and aren’t necessarily concerned with ‘art’ at all, and that side of the design approach and intent was completely unrepresented by the choice of judges. The show was billed as ‘open call’, with all the problems that causes, and many people are making resin figures with no intention of being viewed as ‘art’ and judged as such. It’s very akin to the difference between Western vinyl and Japanese vinyl kaiju figures to me.
I also worry for the community a bit with this whole judging vs. feedback issue. The silence from some judges and general attitude portrayed in the pics from the show calls into question why they were chosen as having opinions worth hearing, or if we should care at all. Every aspect of this show from inception to execution seems like it could have been handled better, but I think the lack of meaningful discussion in the aftermath from some of the judges really leaves me with a bad taste.
You are so right, and I’m glad you wrote this post, as un-PC as it may be.
The “A for effort” attitude has taken over in a big way in all areas of life. What can you expect when kids get a prize for just showing up?
Nevertheless, I’m genuinely surprised that the show exhibitors were not expecting any critiques in a JURIED show. I’m a (very) amateurish photographer, yet whenever I enter a competition (on Facebook etc.), I always place a great emphasis on subject and composition, to get the best photo possible. I also make beaded jewelry, and on the rare occasion that I put items for sale, I offer only the best ones. Any items that I’m not completely comfortable with stay with me.
Unfortunately, when I visit craft fairs, I often see items that are not perfectly made. Far from it. And I always wonder how sellers can, with a clear conscience, take money from buyers for pieces that are not perfect.
So I’m guessing it’s this combination of putting up with less-than-perfect results and expecting salutations for just showing up that led to this disastrous show. Indeed, some of the entries are not only godawful, but cringe-inducing. I, personally, would be embarrassed to put my name next to some of them; not to mention expect to win a prize.
I follow several toy makers on Twitter/Facebook, and some of them are not, how to say it, the sharpest knives in the drawer. Maybe I’m being unjust, but, in my opinion, people who have had no art education whatsoever – whether formal or self-taught – cannot be true artists. They don’t have to go art school, but they do have to know a bit about art and be open to learning from their predecessors. Otherwise, they are just manufacturers in my book.
Man, I am so feeling this. I want to post a better thought out response but I’m on a phone and late for work as it is. Suffice to say this ressonates very soundly with me. I want more.
Right on.
Although I’m getting to this rather late I was hoping to have some sort of feedback from this show. I however did not think about asking, so if I may I’ll ask now.
I’m the one who entered Skekiltor, I was curious as to what you thought were the best and worst aspects of this piece as a whole?
Be harsh I wont get better if I dont know my mistakes.