more about the Hugo Artist awards
Aug. 20th, 2018 07:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraRe Artist Hugos - after further reflection, I think scrapping person awards in favor of works awards is too radical a change for the Hugos, which are not wrong to value continuity and consistency (so that in some sense an award given in 2018 is "the same award" that someone got in 1953 or whatever). Professional Artist is in fact one of the original awards (as "Best Interior Illustrator" and "Best Cover Artist"; it has also been "Best Artist"), and I think any changes made in the arts categories should prioritize making sure this award has broad and easily understood eligibility.
To that end, I think it would be better to drop the notion of "Professional" and just award it to the Best Artist regardless of whether/how they got paid. (I personally would like to spend zero hours of the rest of my life ever thinking about whether Patreon-supported art or Kickstartered art or whatever newfangled funding streams they're going to have in another twenty years are "professional", for instance.) And then I propose dropping the category of "Fan Artist" entirely and instead introducing a new award for "Best New Artist" in parallel with the Campbell Award and following similar eligibility rules. I think the Campbell does great work recognizing and celebrating exciting new voices and that's something it would be great to be doing for art too, and it's *not* something the Chesleys are already doing. I think this would be much more useful and important for the genre than this idea that Fan Artist is meant to thank people for helping out with con programs and fanzines, which seems to me like a backwards-looking approach focused on irrelevant details of payment and venue. We voters already have a good understanding of what the Campbell is and the admins know how to wrangle it, so I think, for a completely new award, this would be actually be a relatively conservative addition.
I am serious about this proposal to the extent that I may try to write it up in better language and email it to someone on the new committee, but people should feel free to link to this post, or to share the general idea without attribution, I think it's a good enough idea that I'd be happy for it to get some traction in any fashion.
To that end, I think it would be better to drop the notion of "Professional" and just award it to the Best Artist regardless of whether/how they got paid. (I personally would like to spend zero hours of the rest of my life ever thinking about whether Patreon-supported art or Kickstartered art or whatever newfangled funding streams they're going to have in another twenty years are "professional", for instance.) And then I propose dropping the category of "Fan Artist" entirely and instead introducing a new award for "Best New Artist" in parallel with the Campbell Award and following similar eligibility rules. I think the Campbell does great work recognizing and celebrating exciting new voices and that's something it would be great to be doing for art too, and it's *not* something the Chesleys are already doing. I think this would be much more useful and important for the genre than this idea that Fan Artist is meant to thank people for helping out with con programs and fanzines, which seems to me like a backwards-looking approach focused on irrelevant details of payment and venue. We voters already have a good understanding of what the Campbell is and the admins know how to wrangle it, so I think, for a completely new award, this would be actually be a relatively conservative addition.
I am serious about this proposal to the extent that I may try to write it up in better language and email it to someone on the new committee, but people should feel free to link to this post, or to share the general idea without attribution, I think it's a good enough idea that I'd be happy for it to get some traction in any fashion.
