An Explanation.........................again.

As some of you already know, I have been a judge on the 2011 Fashion Colorworks competition.

As most of you already know, I'm not one of those people who holds back if I have something to say.

Now, this in my opinion is a good thing for a judge of any kind, but it seems my opinions of some of the entries may have grated a few nerves along the way. Hopefully, I will try and throw some light on what I said, and why I said it.

A competition of any kind is just that - people challenging each other to produce better work than they have, it is not a 'display opportunity', nor is it intended to be a 'learning curve', although it frequently is. My comments about entries being far below the standard intended were aimed at the entries which had obviously been 'cobbled together' in the hope of some free exposure, in a few cases the photographs were not just bad, they were unreadable - therefore unjudgeable! (made up word)

I have been taken to task about not 'giving constructive criticism'..............there were nearly two hundred entries, and we had to kiss a lot of frogs before we found the princes and princesses! If constructive criticism is wanted, then ask for it, otherwise you will be put in the same class as the winners - it's a competition, remember?

I am not a first class beader, I teach workshops to beaders who are head and shoulders above me in the skill scale, I do, however, take a huge amount of pride in what I put out there for the world to see.................and I also know when I make rubbish. There is a common thing amongst the craft community of praising each other's work be it good or bad, in the interests of 'nurturing' them to produce bigger and better things - a long time ago a beader friend told me that my fastenings let me down, if she had told me I was wonderful I would still be making crap fastenings............nobody gets better without criticism!

If you don't like my honest criticism, find out if I'm a judge and complain. Otherwise treat it in the spirit of which it is given - to help, further, and improve your work using my own experience of being told what is good and what is not! 

I shall now don my flak jacket and await the bullets.

peter