BOSTON, MA.- Since 1979 the Drawing Show has been a widely anticipated hallmark of the BCA’s programming. This juried exhibition has allowed the BCA to work with more than five hundred artists and guest curators. Proposals are welcome from all artists and designers who explore drawing as a medium in their work.

Drawings That Work - Juror’s Statement
Drawing practices are often used as a preparatory phase for finished work. Artists and designers make drawings to respond to the requirements of particular projects, developing specialized forms of drawing to carry the information needed for diverse media ranging from traditional to experimental. Art historians identify various types of drawing - sketch, study, modello, cartoon - in terms of the function they serve in the artistic process.

Are these categories still useful today? What new types of preparatory drawing are developing in response to the needs of contemporary visual culture? What is the "work" that drawing does and how does it get accomplished?

Artists and designers are invited to consider drawing as it fits into their studio practice from the point of view of function and to submit drawings in any media used in the realization of completed or future projects.

About the Juror
Andrew Stein Raftery is a printmaker specializing in narrative engravings of contemporary American life. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Fogg Art Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery and the Addison Gallery of American Art. In 2003, Raftery received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and in 2008 he was a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He is represented by Mary Ryan Gallery in New York. In his position as Associate Professor of Printmaking at Rhode Island School of Design, he has had many opportunities to collaborate with the RISD Museum on exhibitions and educational programs, currently working as consulting curator for The Brilliant Line: The Journey of the Early Modern Engraver, opening in fall 2009. He was recently elected to membership in the National Academy of Design.

General Guidelines
• If you are planning a site-specific piece, please familiarize yourself with the existing gallery wall and floor areas. A floor plan can be downloaded from bcaonline.org.

• The staff of the Mills Gallery, in consultation with the juror, will make all final decisions regarding appropriateness of materials and installation methods.

• Artists are responsible for the delivery or shipment of the work to and from the gallery.

• Though you may request a specific location in the gallery for your proposed work, it is not guaranteed upon acceptance. Accepted artists will be assigned a space, as determined by the juror in consultation with gallery staff.