The Burlington County Art Guild (BCAG) will host the 51st annual Bly Ransley Founders’ open juried art exhibit at the Dr. David Flinker Pavilion Art Gallery at Mount Holly’s Virtua Memorial Hospital.
The event will take place from Saturday, Aug. 3, to Saturday, Sept. 28. An opening reception and award presentation is scheduled for 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 17.
The BCAG was founded in 1966 by Mount Holly artists Robert Ransley and Gisela J. Bly, who both had the mutual desire to form an art guild that would increase awareness of the visual arts. The guild is a community-based volunteer organization of approximately 150 member artists who reside in and around the county, according to the guild’s website.
“It’s interesting to see what other people are doing, and it also gives us the chance to see different art mediums and what people are doing with those mediums,” said BCAG president Joseph Hughes of the guild and the Bly Ransley Founders’ exhibit.
“Certainly for me – and I imagine for a lot of the members of the guild – most of us probably concentrate in one medium,” he added, “so the opportunity to see what people do with other mediums is interesting and potentially affects the kind of art that we do personally.”
The BCAG’s goal is to educate, encourage, support and advocate for the visual arts community in the county and surrounding areas. The guild provides numerous artist educational workshops and monthly meetings for member artists, and also sponsors and promotes art exhibitions and juried competitions. They include the Ransley show, an open juried exhibition held annually in the spring.
Awards of cash, gift cards and merchandise are offered, and prizes have totaled $3,000. The BCAG also publishes a regular monthly newsletter distributed to its membership from September through May. It includes member news, exhibition opportunities, a calendar of events and other pertinent material.
For more information about the Bly Ransley Founders’ Open Juried Art Exhibit, how to become a member of the BCAG or to donate to the guild, visit www.burlcoartguild.com.
“Since it (the Bly Ransley Founders’ Open Juried Art Exhibit) does have a fair amount of prize money associated with it, we do draw a wide variety of artists and some good quality and interesting work, so that’s what I look forward to,” Hughes noted.
“ … Just seeing all of it hung and shown together is exciting as well.”
