[National Juried Wearable Art Event] Uncommon Thread: Essomenia @ Baton Rouge Gallery

Baton Rouge Gallery Announces Uncommon Thread: Essomenia, Now Accepting Submissions for National Juried Wearable Art Event in September

Uncommon Thread is a unique platform for artists and designers to present their work and give audiences a one-of-a-kind visual experience with this exciting art form.

Baton Rouge Gallery – center for contemporary art (“BRG”) is proud to announce that Uncommon Thread – the national juried wearable art event and competition introduced by CULTURE CANDY – will be coming to the Gallery and BREC’s City Park this September.

Since its founding, Uncommon Thread has been synonymous with innovative presentations of wearable art, working with design professionals, choreographers, dancers, makeup artists, stylists, and musicians. Over the years, over 200 works of wearable art from across the country have walked this unconventional runway.

BRG is now accepting submissions from all U.S. based artists for Uncommon Thread: Essomenia, taking place at BRG on Saturday, September 21, 2019. The deadline for submissions is August 1.

Artists/designers chosen as finalists will have their selected work(s) featured during the Uncommon Thread event, when one standout piece will be named Best in Show and awarded a $1,000 cash prize. Artists can learn more about submitting work for Uncommon Thread: Essomenia at batonrougegallery.org/uncommon-thread/

UNCOMMON THREAD’S 2019 THEME: ‘ESSOMENIA’

Uncommon Thread has traditionally asked artists/designers to focus their work on a specific theme, typically one that plays off of the mission, character, and feel of its presentation venue. This tradition continues with this year’s competition.

Contemporary art, in many ways, often has its eye on the future, even when exploring the present. With this in mind, we are proud to announce the theme for 2019’s Uncommon Thread is “Essomenia,” an 18th century term meaning “to show things as they will be in the future.”

We invite designers and artists to make the unimaginable tangible (and wearable) while setting their sights on the world that lies ahead. Whether inspired to look 20 years down the road or 200 years into the future, Uncommon Thread wants to know what you foresee. How might technology, the environment, the political climate, interpersonal relations, or other realities change or impact other changes? What might be commonplace for our great-grandchildren that most can’t even fathom today? Can your “essomenic” design simultaneously tell us something about our collective today and our tomorrow?

SPECIAL GUEST JUROR: GRACE DuVAL

Past jurors for Uncommon Thread have included former Vera Wang designer Suzanne Perron, Garments of Paradise author and art historian Susan Ryan, sculptor Loren Schwerd, Fiber Arts Magazine editor Liz Good, and fashion designer Anthony Ryan Auld.

In 2019, BRG is proud to have one of wearable art’s most exciting American artists, GRACE DUVAL, serving as Special Guest Juror for Uncommon Thread: Essomenia.

Based in Chicago, IL, Grace DuVal is a wearable artist, maker, and photographer. Her wearable art designs have been featured in exhibits both across the U.S. and internationally, most recently at World of WearableArt in Wellington, NZ (where her Mind the Synaptic Gap won the 2018 Dame Suzie Moncrieff Award; and a year earlier, DuVal’s work was named Supreme Award Runner-Up and received the Sustainability Award).

She has also collaborated on projects with Disney, Hot Topic, and Her Universe and had her work featured in Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Paper Magazine, Bustle, Jezebel, HelloGiggles, and beyond.

DuVal is also a four-time Uncommon Thread participant and took home Best in Show honors in 2008 and 2015.

Uncommon Thread: Essomenia is generously sponsored and supported by Pat & Kjell Flanagan.

More information on Uncommon Thread: Essomenia at batonrougegallery.org/uncommon-thread/

ABOUT BATON ROUGE GALLERY

Baton Rouge Gallery – center for contemporary art (”BRG”) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. BRG is one of America’s longest-standing artist cooperative organizations, having first opened its doors in 1966. Today, celebrating more than 50 years of exhibitions and programming, the gallery boasts an artist member roster of over 60 of the region’s best visual artists. In addition to regular exhibitions featuring its artist members, BRG also hosts juried exhibitions and features a diverse and engaging programming calendar.

For more information on this exhibition and other happenings at Baton Rouge Gallery, please visit batonrougegallery.org or call 225.383.1470.

Baton Rouge Gallery (“BRG”), a proud BREC partner since 1984, is supported in part by its members and via a Decentralized Arts Funding Grant from the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge in cooperation with the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, and Louisiana State Arts Council. BRG also receives support from John G. Turner & Jerry G. Fischer, 89.3 WRKF, and the late Paula Manship.