Open Call for Art

Open Call for Art

Constellation Gallery, a nonprofit art gallery at 511 Congress Street in Portland Maine invites artists from all over the world to submit art to their "Art Without Borders" show which runs from July 26 to August 26th.  This will be the first show in which non-members of the Maine Artists Collective will be allowed to enter work to be adjudicated into a show.  Gallery hours are Monday to Sunday, noon to 4 pm.

Any kind of art (except for sculptures needing pedestals) is being accepted for this show including painting, photography, digital art, printmaking, collage or assemblage. There is no theme for this show and there is no fee.  Artists may submit up to 10 images as jpgs (1,280 pixels on the longest side at 72 dpi, jpg compression level 8). 

The deadline for images emailed to gallery@constellationart.com is July 1st, 2013. Artists will be notified by July 8th and those included in the show are asked to submit images (1,280 pixels on the longest side at 300 dpi, jpg compression level 8) toanntracy51@gmail.com by July 10th. 

Work must be delivered to the gallery no later than July 22nd.  If art is being mailed or sent via UPS or FedEx,  artists must include return postage in a separate envelope or the work will not be returned.

All work must be ready to hang (no saw tooth hangers please) and marked on the back with the artist's name, title of work, type of work and price.  Constellation Gallery will take a 50% commission on any work that is sold.  Artists will receive their checks by the end of September.

Dates to Remember:

July 1st - Deadline for image submission to gallery@constellationart.com

July 8th - Artists notified

July 10th - Accepted artists to send high resolution images (1,280 pixels on the longest side at 300 dpi, jpg compression level 8) to anntracy51@gmail.com

 July 22nd - Deadline for work to be delivered to gallery.

July 26th to August 26th - Exhibition run

August 2nd - Artists reception

Fulbright Alum Helps Islamabad Street Kids Find a Better Future

BY JENNIFER MCANDREW
Jennifer McAndrew serves at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Jawaid is a four-year-old trash picker. He wants to be a tree when he grows up.

At least, that's what he tells his teacher during an art class sponsored by the LettuceBee Kids project in Islamabad, Pakistan.

"But you are not a tree," the teacher tells him. "If you don't like where you are, you can move."

That's the idea behind the LettuceBee initiative, which helps street kids like Jawaid move beyond a life of begging and trash picking, and re-integrate back into society through art, music, and mentorship.

The brainchild of Sarah Adeel, a Fulbright alumna and graduate of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), the idea for LettuceBee Kids came about when she was in Pakistan in 2008 conducting research for her master's thesis on child welfare in South Asia.

"I was doing a comparative analysis between orphanages and foster-care homes, and these were some of the most abysmal places you could imagine," Adeel explains. "I spent hours getting to know the children. One day, I asked them to write letters to whomever they missed the most, and most of the letters were addressed to God. When I saw them having nobody but God to write to, I knew I wanted to help these kids who, by the luck of the draw, were born on the roadsides."

After graduating from RISD in 2009, Adeel returned to her native Pakistan to launch the LettuceBee Kids non-profit organization with fellow alums Jabbar Bangash, a Global UGRAD alum who earned his degree from Carleton University, Mohsin Ali Afzal, a Fulbright alum and graduate of UC Berkeley, and Zainab Feroz Kapadia, a Fulbright alum and graduate of Columbia University. The United States invests more in the Fulbright Program in Pakistan than in any other country in the world and supports numerous other exchange programs that together have resulted in a Pakistan-U.S. Alumni Network of more than 12,000 registered members.

An estimated 1.2 million children are on the streets of Pakistan's