Spokane Watercolor Society’s annual exhibit continues in a virtual venue

Originally formed in 1952, the Spokane Watercolor Society has been organizing competitions and exhibitions for decades, but this year, for the first time, their spring open juried show, “Visions in Watercolor,” will take place entirely online.

Dale Laitinen, a signature member of the National Watercolor Society and Watercolor West, was selected to adjudicate the competition and lead a workshop for participants. Due to the spread of COVID-19, the workshop has been canceled, but with technical improvisation, Laitinen was able to complete the jurying process online.

The biggest differences Laitinen found between judging in person and online centered on scale and detail. The quality of each photo file becomes more important.

“When you look at someone’s work online, the size of the image is the same for every painting,” Laitinen said. “But if I come to judge (in person), it might be a big painting that’s 2-by-3 feet, it’s going to have things that I don’t recognize online and vice versa. If it’s a small painting, I don’t know that, either. I can only go by the photograph. It wouldn’t be my preference to do the awards online, but in general, I think online jurying works OK.”

Usually, participating artists mail works directly to the society for adjudication, but when concerns over the spread of COVID-19 started to gain momentum and government officials began discouraging gatherings of all kinds, the watercolor society began reformulating its plan.

“We hadn’t really discussed it because the virus wasn’t here yet,” said Karen Robinette, society chairwoman and coordinator for the spring exhibit. “Just a few weeks ago, it seemed to be a Seattle thing … but so much has changed since then. I don’t think anyone really knew how this was going to play out.”

On March 11, Robinette and board president Amalia Fisch thought cancellations might not be necessary. Not wanting to take away opportunities for exhibition from the artists involved, they considered hanging the show and allowing only small groups to visit.

“At that time, we thought it would be safe … we wanted to find a way to carry on and still have (the live show) somehow,” Robinette said.

But by March 13, with other local arts organizations canceling concerts and libraries and schools starting to close, they knew they had to act quickly. The timing was especially critical because according to their submission schedule, more than 80 paintings from artists all over the country were meant to start arriving in Spokane the next week.

“I give the board a lot of credit for this. Nobody panicked, everybody just said, ‘OK, let’s figure it out,’ ” Robinette said.

From a group of 84 submissions, Laitinen chose first-, second- and third-place winners and gave a number of additional awards of excellence to others. First place is awarded $500; second, $300; third, $200.

Laitinen said the subjects of this year’s submissions largely gravitated toward three categories: florals, family groups and landscapes.

“I really hope that this is an encouragement to people,” Robinette said. “There are different ways to look at the situation. You can be positive or you can really let it get you down. I chose to look at the positive side and how we can still make things work in spite of all of this.”