The Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery on Cortes is now open for proposals for the 2023 season. The Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery hosts local Cortes Island artists in a series of shows each year and are encouraging new artists to apply. No prior experience presenting your work in necessary to propose a show.

"In a post COVID atmosphere, we're really encouraging what in the community is called the emerging artist. There's a number of artists on the island who, quite frankly, I wish they would apply to the gallery. I see little snippets of their work here and there. Or it's on a poster or it's a collective of folks who put together some kind of signage or they're part of a market and you go, wow, how come we haven't seen them?" said Kristen Schofield-Sweet, chair of the board for the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery Society.

The Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery has a season that starts in June and goes through mid-September, typically choosing five or six shows depending on the number of applications.

"There's an opportunity to be part of an arts community. To not just go to your own show, not just have the courage to take the chance to be on the wall, but also to become involved in going to the artist talks, to the openings, to the shows that then unfold across the whole season. So it's an opportunity to be in a community of people who are having the same kind of felt experiences that you are," Schofield-Sweet said. "And that's pretty rare nowadays. Most of us, our sense of community is somehow attached to a device, and art is quite frankly the opposite of that in most cases."

The deadline for receiving proposals is Tuesday, March 7.

Listen for more from Kristen Schofield-Sweet, chair of the board for the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery Society, on details and tips on how to propose a show, and what this opportunity offers a local artist: