BLM Artist Grant: What about the kids?
I can’t wait to hear more about the fall 2021 exhibit planned at Washington State University! The twenty Black Lives Matter Artist Grant winners have been announced. Now for the next step: showing our work on campus, in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
I’m glad the selection committees included a few students like Mikayla Makle, president of the Black Student Union. Now that the first jolts of excitement have worn off, though, I wonder how the exhibit will land with other WSU students. I don’t expect anti-BLM protests. But as recent graduate Promise Calloway observed, micro-aggressions are fairly common.
I’m well aware there are plenty of people who think BLM means “only Black Lives Matter.” Not just in Pullman, Washington, but in Eugene and Portland, Oregon, where the two other branches of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum are located. I hope the only thing (and it’s a big one) that might interfere with the exhibits is another spike in coronavirus infection rates. The current lockdowns in Washington and Oregon are supposed to end on December 14th and 16th, respectively. So mask up, all right? Let’s not delay The Big Show any longer than necessary.
How much time do you have left?
I’ve calculated exactly how much time you have left, down to the very last day.
The deadline to apply to “Between the Fold” is in nine days. In other words, you have two weekends plus a full work week to finish your book art and submit your application. Then it’s up to the jurors — me and Mighty Tieton co-founder Ed Marquand — to choose the stand-out artworks. All right, we’ve chatted enough. Upload your work and press send — it’s later than you think….
Call for art: "Between the Fold"
Gallery One called. They want to see your book art like right now.
The nationwide call for art is live on Gallery One’s website for the April exhibit “Between the Fold.” What The gallery defines book art as:
“the field of art that involves the creation of works using or referring to structural and conceptual properties of books. While an existing book may be altered to create a work, instead of being merely a printed book about art, works in the genre of book arts are intended as artworks themselves.“
I alter existing books; maybe you fold or cut or use paper in some other way. You do you.
Art book publisher Ed Marquand and I will select the works for this exhibit. (You might know Ed as the guy behind the annual 10x10x10xTieton Exhibition.) The entry deadline is February 23rd. Maybe that sounds far away… but it’s only a few weeks to create a piece from scratch if you work slowly like me. Get moving, and show us your book art submissions!