Langley City wants your art for First Bloom: submit by December 1

Here’s a quick one for anyone in Langley who paints, draws, photographs or stitches. The City’s gallery staff are collecting work for First Bloom, the show that follows Winter Celebrations on the second floor of Timms. The brief is growth and beginnings: the first green pushing through snow, the quiet feeling that something new is starting. Read it as loosely as you like.

Submissions go by email to [email protected] by Monday, December 1. The City’s artist-calls page sets the ground rules for every call it runs: original work you have the right to show, suitable for all ages, and complete and on time, because late or incomplete entries may not be looked at. Selection happens after the deadline, weighed on artistic quality, fit with the theme and the space, and timeline. Only the artists chosen hear back, and getting in once doesn’t guarantee the next one.

If you’ve never shown work before, this is a friendly place to start. A Step Above is a public hallway gallery inside a rec centre, so your piece gets seen by swimmers, gym-goers and seniors on their way to a class, not just gallery regulars. It’s open long hours: Monday to Friday 6 am to 10 pm, Saturday 8 am to 9:30 pm, Sunday 8 am to 8 pm, holidays 10 am to 3 pm, free, with elevators and step-free entrances.

Two more things worth knowing while you’re at it. Winter Celebrations, the current show, is up until December 17 if you want to see how work hangs there before you submit. And the City’s other gallery, the Community Gallery at Douglas Rec Centre across the park, invites artists or groups who can pull together 30 to 35 pieces to curate a whole show with the civic gallery curator; same email address.

We’ll add First Bloom to the events calendar once it opens. The City’s last call, for the fall street banners, is closed; this one is open until December 1.