The First Ever Regional Art Prize In The San Francisco Bay Area
Welcome artists and art lovers! The Sheridan Prize for Art is the first and only regional art prize in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Prize for Art is accepting artwork from all Bay Area artists from September 7 – November 1, 2023. This is the third year of this historic and unique, regional art prize. All submitted works of art are viewable when you visit the links below.
The Sheridan Prize for Art features art submitted from artists who live, work or study in the 9 San Francisco Bay Area counties and Sacramento and Santa Cruz counties. The Prize for Art welcomes ALL artists from 11 Bay Area counties of San Francisco: San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo, Napa, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, Sacramento and Santa Cruz counties.
There are 10 very interesting and different Categories of Art or Artists to submit artwork to below. Each group is juried and awarded independently from the others. Artists may submit up to 8 total entries that apply to those Categories, as they choose. They are: Painting/Drawing/Murals, Sculpture, Photography, Printmaking, Experimental Art, Women Artists, Artists of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQ+ Artists, Incarcerated Artists (who participate free) and Immigrant Artists.
Two more Categories of Art with prizes will also be offered at the end of the competition that artists cannot submit work to and which will not be juried but will instead be VOTED on: an Artists’ Choice voted by Participating Artists who have Signed Up and also a Peoples’ Choice voted by Viewers who have Signed Up, after the Prize for Art closes from November 2 – November 16, 2023. These 12 total groups or categories are viewable, just visit the links below.
If you are a participating artist I wish you great good luck but more than winning a prize it is your participation and the inclusion of your work that truly counts in helping to build an entirely new stage for your work and the work of other Bay Area artists that has never existed before, a platform to participate in without gatekeeping. But here is one of the biggest innovations of the Sheridan Prize for Art: There are 73 awards of between $500 and $100! Or $500-$100 off Bay Area artist services. This is a vast increase in the number of awards compared to the prizes from other competitions.
So if you love and support art plan to visit here again and often. Participating artists pay only $10.00 for each submitted work, which will be viewable on this website, along with any external links, a photo and a 500 word artist’s statement if you like. You and everyone else will see your work permanently on this website under the category or group you chose your work to be seen in.
There will be prizewinners in each of the 12 categories of art and also Honorable Mentions for a total of 73 awards in the only Art Prize dedicated to acknowledging, celebrating and showcasing the art of the San Francisco Bay Area. The 12 winning works of art will also have an original essay written on them by the very talented longtime Bay Area art critic Harry Roche, John Rapko or by John Sheridan.
About the Prize
This Prize for Art came about from my observations of the artworld in the Bay Area over many years. As costs have skyrocketed for rent for artists’ studios ($2-$3.50+/sf in Alameda County which has no subsidized art studio space), galleries and venues as well as for everything else, it seemed to me that artists in the Bay Area need a lot of help, which was not being provided to them. Newspapers and magazines have stopped covering the arts on a consistent basis, venues and colleges are closing, artists are finding they must work 2 and 3 jobs and many are leaving the Bay Area – or face a difficult time if they want to remain artists. All this is unnecessary and based on greed but it is the terrible environment artists find themselves in.
I wanted to create something to help as many people as possible and it seemed the only way to do that was to create a new space, never before tried in the Bay Area, that was open to ALL artists at low or no cost, with a very large number of cash awards, compared to the usual 3 to 5 awards of most art competitions. And then to hold it annually so that it will become an anticipated event that would showcase as many artists who wished to participate as possible. Without curation and without gate-keeping or censorship. Hate speech and illegal or abusive imagery is the only thing that is not allowed – but all other experiments are.
I hope people will view this Prize for Art as a new infrastructure, long-needed in the Bay Area artworld, and the beginning of some kind of remedy for the neglect artists have endured for many years. It offers something for everyone, finally.
This slideshow is of some of the excellent art submitted last year.
Contest Categories
Here are the 12 Categories for the 2023 Prize. Artists may upload their work which appears in the Category they choose. The Artists and People’s Choice awards, will be voted up by the participating artists and viewers who sign up and vote after the Prize for Art closes). Look here to see their work and see the Winning and Honorably Mentioned works of art!
Please click on the “View Art Here” links below to visit each of the different groups of art and artists who are participating in this historic Prize for Art. New artwork will appear as soon as it is submitted and reviewed daily. The Artists’ Choice and the Peoples’ Choice again will only show art after voting is completed after the Prize for Art ends in November. The artwork gracing each of the categories below show art from last year’s Prize for Art.
Painting / Drawing/ Murals
Women Artists
Sculpture
Artists of Color (BIPOC)
Photography
LGBTQ+ Artists
Printmaking
Incarcerated Artists
Experimental Art
Immigrant Artists
Artist’s Choice Award
People’s Choice Award
Donating Directly to the Sheridan Prize for Art is Tax Deductible
You may very easily make a tax deductible donation, through The Sheridan Prize for Art’s fiscal sponsor, Independent Arts & Media, located in San Francisco. See the DONATE button at the top of this page. Your donation will be gratefully received and personally acknowledged. Also please consider sponsoring one or more of the cash awards! If you donate any amount your name or your company’s name can be placed on the Wall of Fame to show everyone that you showed your support for one or more of the prizes of your choice. Please contact us and let us know you would like to sponsor a prize.
You May Purchase Prints of Art to Support the Sheridan Prize for Art!
Please support the Sheridan Prize for Art by purchasing prints partially donated by artists to help raise funds for this Prize. The works of art are not a part of the competition but are very high-quality archival works of art with the proceeds split between the artist and the Prize for Art. See the BUY ART HERE button at the top of this page. Your collecting one or more of these prints will be greatly appreciated and will defray some of the costs of putting on The Sheridan Prize for Art.