Of course judging is very subjective. And I think it goes way beyond that, too. There are some folks' work I can pretty much recognize immediately (Patsy Thompson, Edyta Sitar, Sharon Schamber, etc) even without a name being on them. Now, I'm no judge by any stretch, but I think in those cases you would HOPE that a judge is just as objective as they can be, but I doubt they are often successful. I think there's a lot of politics that go into the major shows, too. And personal opinion has to enter it to some degree too. Quilts can ribbon at one show, and receive no recognition at the next. I don't know that I'd ever enter a quilt in a juried show (but, I'd never say never...), but I so far have only entered some in nonjuried shows and really liked it. If you hang around you can generally hear comments and know what people think about it. That's probably enough for me.
