In partnership, Reading Pride Celebration and GoggleWorks Center for the Arts are pleased to announce an open call for the 2nd annual LGBTQ+ Art Showcase in Reading, PA. Open to all artists (ages 16+) in Berks County and it’s surrounding counties who design and produce their own artwork. This juried exhibition aims to showcase local LGBTQ+ artists as a way to celebrated the beauty and resilience of our diverse community. Open to all forms of displayable art.
Important Dates
March 8 – April 28, 2024: Open Call
April 28, 2024: All entries due by midnight
May 7, 2024: Acceptance/Rejection emails will be sent
May 25 – 26, 2024: Artwork Drop off in Schmidt Gallery (9am-9pm)
May 30, 2024 – June 27, 2024: Exhibition dates
June 9, 2024: Gallery Reception & Award Ceremony, 3-5pm
June 28, 2024: Artwork pick up (time tbd)
About the Jurors
Ashley Houston is the Director of Collections & Exhibitions at the Reading Public Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania. In this role, Houston oversees the planning and implementation of over one dozen exhibitions annually, a combination of those curated from The Museum’s permanent collection and nationally touring exhibitions. Highlights in recent years include: Danny Lyon: Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement (2024), In Nature’s Studio: Two Centuries of American Landscape Painting (2021), CUT! Costume and the Cinema (2019), and Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism Through the French Lens (2018). Houston also manages The Museum’s roster of touring exhibitions, sharing its mission to educate and enlighten on a national scale. Collections research and management rounds out her purview, with recent research culminating in the identification of both artist and patron of a pair of early 16th century German stained and painted glass windows from The Museum’s permanent collection.
A native of Berks County, PA, Houston holds an MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware.
Peter Flood | Community Programs Coordinator (he/him) is a Gettysburg College graduate with a major in anthropology and minors in history and religious studies. He has been at the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center for two years. He runs the Queer Gallery at the center and manages the community groups. His interests include reading and writing fiction with a focus on including LGBTQ+ people in genres like fantasy and science fiction. He thinks there are few things more enjoyable than curling up in front of the fire with a good book.
Awards
Honorable Mention(s) – Certificate(s)
Community Choice Award – Pride Merch Gift Basket
About Reading Pride Celebration
Founded in 2006, Reading Pride Celebration has the mission to celebrate diversity in the LGBTQ+ community of Greater Reading. RPC is committed to Diversity, Equity and inclusion by building a community that embraces and supports differences and seeks to eliminate racial oppression, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and other oppression.
