On Display January 6th – 30th

View Online Gallery

Introducing the Winter Member Show:

MFA (Maryland Federation of Art) invites all MFA members residing in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Mexico to enter the 2021 Winter Member Show. Any original 2-D or 3-D work will be considered. Works selected will be on exhibit at MFA Circle Gallery, 18 State Circle, Annapolis, Maryland from January 6-30, 2021.

Click this icon to view and print the downloadable prospectus.

Click this icon to view and print the downloadable catalog.

Juror: Erin Lehman, Director of The Holtzman and Center for the Arts Galleries, Towson University

Erin Lehman is Director of The Holtzman and Center for the Arts Galleries and Lecturer in Art History at Towson University. She received her BA from Haverford College and her PhD from Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Her areas of research interest and teaching include the confluence of Impressionism, the professionalization of sports, and changing ideals of masculinity in the nineteenth-century, museum studies, 18th, 19th and 20th c. European and American art, social protest art of the 1960s, history of photography, and gender studies. Before coming to Towson, Dr. Lehman was a curatorial research associate at the American Philosophical Society Museum and a Curatorial Fellow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Recently curated exhibitions at Towson include All-Night Party, Stacy Levy: Collected Watershed, and From the Inside Out: Building the Silhouette.

Juror’s Statement

Some of the works in the 2021 Winter Member Show perfectly capture the zeitgeist of the moment, while others offer a welcome distraction. They consider the past, sit with the realities of the present, and hope for the future. The works are in the moment, waiting, mindful, but always hanging in there, resilient, not forgotten. They create a pastel halcyon dream of a quarantine that is more idyllic communing with nature than fraught and lonely slog, or they make the best of it, with happily smiling friends just outside the window or a new gang of inanimate buddies to replace those no longer accessible. Represented in the show is the new normal, including masking, portrayed in humorous tones and striking colors, with a quick slide into entrepreneurial opportunity. Also on view are works that confront and deal with the racial and economic realities of our times, which hit hard this summer and continue to reverberate through our collective conscious. The works celebrate the shared reinvigoration of our relationship with nature, with communal, cultural, and personal histories, with home improvement, with food and its preparation, but also our dreams of a much more tactile and intimate future filled with travel, with hugging old friends and meeting new ones, with milestones and rites of passage that happen in person once again. Sixty-two of over five hundred entries, from a wide variety of media, come together in an exhibition that is timely and so right now and yet universal and enduring. The artworks in the show help us to confront and contemplate our own complicated and contradictory feelings about this oh so odd period in our history, while individually standing out as technically skillful images that tell a particular, individual story all on their own.

– Erin Lehman, PhD, Director of the Art+Design, Art History, Art Education Galleries, and Lecturer in Art History, Towson University

Awards

Juror’s Choice
  • Sandra Valeria Franklin, Last Walk, wood and resin
  • Wayne W. Guenther, Heavy Load, photography
  • Philip Friedman, Covid Self Portrait with Intact Ear, acrylic on Gessoboard
  • Dave Vetal, Easter, Baltimore c. 1965, oil on canvas
  • Jayne Bentley Gaskins, Remnants of Love, fiber
Honorable Mention
  • Stacy Joy Lund Levy, Is it Safe to Come in Yet?, watercolor on paper
  • Bonnie Zuckerman, Koi, mixed media collage
  • Mary Opasik, Scorched Fish, furniture parts, canvas, bones, shell, and aged metal
  • Nada Romanos Abizaid, Aspen, stoneware
  • Patrick McKinnon, Impact Driver, charcoal
Conley Award for 3-D Work
  • Sandra Valeria Franklin, Last Walk, wood and resin

*Award contributors and recipients will also be listed in the exhibition catalog.

Information for Accepted Artists

NOTE: Should Circle Gallery or any other exhibition space be closed for reasons beyond our control, MFA reserves the right to move a planned physical exhibit to our online gallery. Please mark your calendar for notification. This may include specific information that varies from the prospectus.

Exhibition Schedule

Exhibition Schedule:

  • Oct. 7 Online entry open for submissions.
  • Nov. 21 Deadline for entries (updated from prospectus).
  • By Dec. 10 All artists notified by email. Check mdfedart.com or contact MFA if you do not receive notice.
  • Dec. 27 – 29 & Jan. 2-3 Shipped work must arrive at MFA Circle Gallery. Please read the prospectus for more on how to ship your piece.
  • Jan. 6 First day of exhibition.
  • Jan. 17 Digital reception and award announcement.
  • Jan. 30 Last day of exhibition.
  • Jan. 31 – Feb. 2 Pick up handed-delivered work, hours by appointment. Accepted artists will receive an email with how to sign up for a pick-up time. There is a $10 fee for late pick up.
  • By Feb. 3 Shipped work will be sent.

Delivery and Shipping

Delivery

  • All work delivered to the gallery must have the following information affixed to the non-viewing side of artwork:
    • Artist Name
    • Address, phone number and email
    • Title of the work, medium and price. Be specific with medium descriptions (e.g., oil on hardboard or canvas, not oil; chromogenic print or archival ink jet print, not photography or digital print; oil pastel on paper, not pastel; etc.)
  • Work must arrive on scheduled dates.
  • Paintings must be dry.
  • Measure to ensure work meets size limitations before delivery, include outer edges of frames. Work not in compliance will not be exhibited. No exceptions.
  • All shipped work must include a bar-coded shipping label. Do not send by United States Postal Service (USPS). We prefer UPS but accept FedEx. No shipping peanuts allowed.
  • Please affix packing/repacking instructions to OUTSIDE of shipping box.
  • Tips on shipping can be viewed on the RedDotBlog

Pickup and Storage

Pickup and Storage

  • When the exhibit ends, unless specified otherwise, you may pick up your work no earlier than 3:00 pm on the closing day of the exhibit.
  • You must pick up your work within 48 hours of the closing day of the exhibit, or notify the gallery if you will be late. Please read the prospectus for exact dates of pickup.
  • Unless previous arrangements have been made, work placed in storage after announced pickup dates will be subject to a fine of $10.00 per piece, per week. Work left in storage longer than two (2) weeks shall become MFA property and may be disposed of, or used for fundraising purposes. There are no exceptions.

Liability

Liability

All work will be handled with all possible care, but pieces submitted for exhibition are at the artist’s risk. In the event of damage or theft, MFA will not be held liable. If insurance is desired, the artist must carry it.

Sales

Sales

  • All work entered into any exhibition must be for sale unless prior agreements are made, and marked either with a price or POR for Price On Request.
  • Artists will retain 75% from sales.
  • Sale of artwork is taxable and all sales tax processing will be handled by MFA.
  • Sold artwork requiring shipment will be handled by MFA with costs collected from buyer. Buyers will be asked if the work may be retained until the exhibit ends. If the buyer disagrees, the Gallery will let the work go, and the artist will be informed.
  • MFA asks that artists donate 20% from any sale made through a direct referral from MFA within three months. All donations are used to help defray operating costs of the Maryland Federation of Art and are tax-deductible by the artists to the full extent of the law.

Notification

All entrants will receive notice by email. The notice to accepted artists will include specific details and could vary from prospectus. A list of accepted artists and artwork will also be posted on MFA’s website. Please set your email account to recognize this address: info@mdfedart.org. Contact Circle Gallery if you do not receive notice.