Calls for Entry

Spring 2025 CVA Gallery Exhibition

Brookdale Community College CVA Gallery, Lincroft, NJ - March 27, 2025 thru May 1, 2025

February 4, 2025, Tuesday: Deadline for submitting entries.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

Positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, known for popularizing the idea of ‘flow state’, began his career studying artists and their creative process. In an 1995 interview with Omin Magazine, he shared his belief that:

“We can’t afford to become trapped within ourselves, our jobs, and religions, and lose sight of the entire tapestry of life. When the self loses itself in a transcendent purpose — whether to write great poetry, craft beautiful furniture, understand the motions of galaxies, or help children be happier — the self becomes largely invulnerable to the fears and setbacks of ordinary existence.” 

The CVA Gallery invites members of the American Color Print Society to submit their own original prints that evoked the feeling of ‘transcendent purpose’ when you made it for a spring exhibit on Brookdale Community College’s Lincroft campus. The work can be of any size or subject matter, but must be submitted with a statement describing what you were thinking about while you made it that will be exhibited alongside the artwork.

HOW TO SUBMIT:

Submissions must be emailed to eelorza@brookdalecc.edu by February 4, 2025 at 9am. Email digital image with list of work (size, date, technique and title of the artwork) and statement describing the thoughts and ideas about creative flow that you had while you were making it. Multiple works will be accepted from each member.

SCHEDULE:

  • February 4, 2025, Tuesday: Deadline for submitting entries.

  • February 10, 2025, Monday: Acceptance date. Members will be notified via email.

  • March 17, 2025, Monday: In-person delivery to CVA Gallery. ACPS will arrange to deliver work to Brookdale, details TBD.

  • March 27, 2025, Thursday: Opening Reception

  • May 1, 2025, Thursday: Closing reception.

  • May 2, 2025, Friday: Artwork Pick-up from Brookdale CC

Download the prospectus: HERE.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION:

Submissions must be emailed to eselorza@brookdalecc.edu by February 4, 2025 at 9am. Email digital image with list of work (size, date, technique and title of the artwork) and statement describing the thoughts and ideas about creative flow that you had while you were making it. Multiple works will be accepted from each member.

  • To ensure a cohesive visual flow for the exhibit, prints should be framed in a white or neutral wood frame. Unframed work will be accepted if it is professionally presented and a strategy for hanging is agreed upon with the curator. There should be no visible color besides the print in the frame, if a matboard is used or a backing board is visible, they must be white. Ikea may have good options for this. Click here for options.

  • Work may be offered for sale if sales are handled by the artist and 20% of the sale price is donated back to the CVA Gallery Visiting Artist fund. 

  • There is no submission fee to enter. This open call is limited to current ACPS members only.

DELIVERY:

ACPS will arrange to deliver work to Brookdale, details TBD. We are currently working on a local drop-off and delivery location to transport works from the Philadelphia area to Brookdale CC. We will provide this information to members whose work is accepted in this show.

Members can HAND DELIVER work to Brookdale Community College CVA Gallery on Monday, March 17th.

ABOUT THE CVA GALLERY:

Mission Statement

The mission of Brookdale Community College’s CVA Gallery is to provide free, equitable access to transformative and inspirational art, design, and related programming for all community members.

As an academic gallery in Monmouth County’s only open-access institution of higher education, we embody Brookdale’s broader mission by striving to be a uniquely foundational and impactful part of the art and design community.

Vision Statement

Collaboratively with students, Brookdale employees, artists, designers, and community members, the CVA Gallery aims to:

  • Create a thoughtful, diverse, immersive, and experimental space where contemporary topics and issues can be explored through art and design.

  • Celebrate and amplify the art and design work of current Brookdale students, alumni, and faculty.

  • Build bridges between:

    • Academic disciplines, Institutes, and partner organizations within Brookdale;

    • Brookdale and the creative professionals and institutions in Monmouth County;

    • Artists and designers in the North-East region and our Monmouth County community through the arts and related programming.

Brookdale Community College

Brookdale is an open-admission, comprehensive community college that serves over 20,000 students per year at five locations throughout Monmouth County. 


Curator

Elisa Elorza (she/her) is a designer, design educator and the CVA Gallery Curator and Manager at Brookdale Community College. She has also taught for the Juvenile Justice Commission Associate Degree Pathway, and at colleges and universities in the Tri-state area, including Georgian Court University, Kean University, and Pratt Institute. 


She is a member of MIT’s Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative (GAHTC) and Polymode Studios’ Black Design in America and Incomplete LatinX Stories of Diseno Grafico learning communities. Recently, she was a member of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation’s Cohort of Global Respondents for their 2023-2024 lecture series. She has a MS from Pratt Institute in Theory, History, and Criticism of Art and Design and completed her thesis research with Princeton University's Art Museum. She has studied Graphic/Web Design, as well as Media and Gender Issues, at NYU and Fordham University.