Call to Artists: Submit work for Collectors’ Night 2021

WPA invites artwork submissions for our benefit auction, which will be hosted on Artsy in May 2021. The auction’s theme this year—Am I Altering Your Aura?—comes from the work of poet and activist Audre Lorde. In determining which artworks to submit, artists should consider the following quote:

Artworks can be submitted online through February 22, 2021. In addition to considering the quote, we encourage you to carefully review the eligibility & selection requirements before doing so (see below). WPA will split sales proceeds 50-50 with the artists. There is no submission fee.

Audre Lorde (1934-92) was “a Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” who was, she would sometimes add, “doing my work, coming to ask you if you are doing yours.” Lorde penned her now-classic essay “Poetry is not a Luxury” in 1977. To this day, it remains one of her best-known works. It encourages an embrace of feeling and a mining of one’s many selves in the service of action. As Roxana Gay has written: “Rethinking and reframing paradigms is a recurring theme in Lorde’s writing.” Toward the end of her life, Lorde changed her name to “Gamba Adisa,” which means “Warrior: She who makes her meaning clear.”

Collectors’ Night raises money for WPA’s artist-organized exhibitions, programs, and projects. The sale will include more than one hundred artworks by artists living throughout the continental United States.

We welcome submissions that meet the following requirements.

• All professional artists making work that is experimental and/or pushes at the boundaries of traditional practice are eligible to submit.
• All forms of painting, drawing, photography, collage, printmaking (analog and digital), sculpture, and three-dimensional multiples are eligible. *No jewelry, crafts, video or sound art will be accepted at this time.*
• Artists must have exhibited in an artist-run or alternative space, commercial or university gallery, or museum in the three years prior to February 2021.
• Artwork submitted must have been completed in the last three years. Graduate work is acceptable; undergraduate work is not.
• Submitted artworks cannot have been shown in previous WPA events/auctions.
• Artists must submit between one (1) and five (5) works. We prefer to include multiple artworks by each artist to provide choice and context for buyers.
• All images must be in jpeg format, sized to 5 X 7 (or approx.) inches at 300 dpi.
• All 2-D artwork submissions on paper, if accepted, must be framed and ready to hang with wiring in good condition (No saw-tooth hangers).