A dozen Napa County artists featured at new de Young Museum exhibit in San Francisco

Three years ago, the de Young Museum in San Francisco took a bold step by opening up a major juried exhibition to entries from any Northern California artist who wanted to apply, something the museum had not attempted, even on a smaller scale, since 1935.

The result was the de Young Open exhibition in 2020. Some 6,190 artists from the nine Bay Area counties applied to have their work included. At the least, you could say it was a success. So, the museum has decided to stage an open-invitation exhibition every three years. The second one opened Sept. 30.

This year, 7,766 artists applied. Of those, 883 artists — including 12 from Napa County — were chosen to have one work shown in the museum’s largest galleries.

BJ Thrailkill of Napa was among the dozen local artists selected.

Her daughter, Molly, who is getting her Ph.D. in visual studies and “has a sharp artist’s eye,” picked one of Thrailkill’s cactus paintings to submit.

“Somehow, miraculously, I got in,” Thrailkill said. “I was stunned to be accepted; with 8,000 applications it had seemed impossible.”

Her “Cactus with Zebra Butterfly” is part of the exhibit.

“I think that being accepted into the de Young Open has had a beneficial effect on how people view me as an artist,” she told The Press Democrat.

Julia Crane of St. Helena was equally astounded by the opportunity from the museum.

“I get it, my work is rejected by art establishments more times than it is accepted, not because the work isn’t good, but because the pool of competent artists is simply staggering,” she said.

“The good news is, this opportunity will come around again in three years and I think that offers great hope,” she added. “This is not just a one and done.”

The museum is making a serious commitment to all Bay Area artists, she said.

“Anyone in the nine Bay Area counties could apply,” said Tim Burgard, curator in charge of the American art department at Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which include the de Young and the Legion of Honor.

“You just have to be 18 or older,” Burgard said. “It doesn’t matter if you have a master of fine arts degree or your own gallery or if you’re self-taught.”

That doesn’t mean it was easy to get work accepted into the exhibit. The jury process was a huge endeavor and took place in two rounds over 19 days. In the first round, eight curators from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco each reviewed an equal share of the total submissions.

The works they rated the highest progressed to the second round and were then reviewed in equal shares by four Bay Area artists — Clare Rojas, Stephanie Syjuco, Sunny A. Smith and Xiaoze Xie — whose ratings ultimately determined which artworks were included in the exhibition.

All artworks in the de Young Open were evaluated anonymously from digital images without any information identifying the artists.

The exhibit will include one photo from the re-enactment. The project was covered in Canada’s History Magazine.

“It’s very valuable just to have all of this work in the museum,” said Burgard of the overall exhibit at the de Young Museum. “This represents a real commitment by the museum. It holds up a mirror to the entire Bay Area.”

Intern Emma Molloy contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On Twitter @danarts.