April 15, 2015
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The West Virginia Division of Culture and History (WVDCH) is announcing a call for entries for its 19th biennial West Virginia Juried Exhibition. The show will be on display at TAMARACK: The Best of West Virginia in Beckley. Since 1979, the exhibition has celebrated the exceptional talents and creativity of Mountain State artists.
Submissions for the exhibit in the form of slides or digital images on CD will be accepted from Monday, June 22 through Friday, Aug. 7. Artists may submit two pieces for the exhibition with a limit of three slides/digital images per entry. Entry forms and properly identified slides/images must be accompanied by a non-refundable fee of $20 per piece. Make check payable to West Virginia Division of Culture and History. Slides/digital images can be mailed to WVDCH, West Virginia Juried Exhibition (WVJE) 2015, The Culture Center, 1900 Kanawha Blvd., E., Charleston, W.Va. 25305-0300, or can be hand-delivered to the Culture Center at the State Capitol Complex.
Eligible entries include works created in the past two years in the areas of painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, photography, mixed media and crafts.
Entrants must be over the age of 18 and must be residents of, and maintain a permanent residence in, West Virginia. Entrants also must complete a WVDCH Artists’ Register form and submit six slides or digital images representative of current work for the file at the division. The images submitted for the Artists’ Register are not used in jurying entries into the exhibition.
A prospectus for the exhibit is available online at http://bit.ly/1FGD8Y4
The division will present up to $33,000 in awards for the exhibition. The awards are made available through the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and the WVDCH through funds appropriated by the West Virginia Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts. Awards may include three $5,000 Governor’s Awards (purchase awards), seven $2,000 Awards of Excellence (purchase awards) and eight $500 Merit Awards (non-purchase awards). Works receiving Purchase Awards become part of the West Virginia State Museum’s Permanent Collection of Art.
“At the agency, we are passionate about our commitment to promoting arts throughout West Virginia,” said Commissioner Randall Reid-Smith. “To further this goal, the Commission on the Arts and the division decided to have the exhibition travel to Beckley this year, sharing the best in art with yet another community in West Virginia.” In 2013, the exhibition was installed at the Dunn Building in Martinsville. Prior to that it was in Wheeling, Huntington and Parkersburg.
The exhibit will open at Tamarack with an awards ceremony and reception at 4 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 8, 2015, and remain on display through February 21, 2016. The exhibit showcases the work of state artists and craftspeople and provides the public with a comprehensive view of art and craft activities in the state.
For more information, contact Cailin Howe, exhibits coordinator for the division, at (304) 558-0220, ext. 128.
The West Virginia Division of Culture and History is an agency within the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts with Kay Goodwin, Cabinet Secretary. The division, led by Commissioner Randall Reid-Smith, brings together the past, present and future through programs and services focusing on archives and history, arts, historic preservation and museums. For more information about the division’s programs, events and sites, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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