We invited entries in any medium exploring the theme Walking the Line, inspired by the catchy Johnny Cash song, “I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep my eyes wide open all the time. I keep the ends out for the tie that binds. Because you're mine, I walk the line.”

To walk-the-line is to maintain an intermediate position between contrasting choices or to mark a boundary by walking along it. References to the line include: above the line, down the line, the end of the line, in line with, line of flight, line of thought, opening line, and of course, drawing the line. A line is a dash, rule, bar, score; underline, underscore, stroke, slash; technical stria, striation.

Juror: Drew Bennett
GearBox is pleased to announce Drew Bennett as the juror for Walking the Line. Bennett is an artist, designer, and curator who straddled the art and tech scenes in the San Francisco Bay Area for years, until his worlds collided in 2012. During the process of being commissioned by Facebook for another art installation, Drew offered to found and lead a proper artist in residence program for the company instead. The result has been a bold new chapter in the history of corporate patronage of art.

This artist-founded, artist-forward program was conceived in the belief that the process of making art is as valuable as the finished product. It is committed to deeply trusting artists, to explore their practice, as the best tack to collaboratively realizing new work. Crucially, the program is based on the belief that art has a very real, and profound impact in inspiring, uniting, and challenging communities.

Facebook Artist in Residence program started at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park in 2012 offering local, early career artists the opportunity to make new, site-specific work in a trusted and unrestricted, corporate campus environment. The open-ended residency model has given way to a globally scaled site-specific commissioning program, that seeks out artists with an authentic presence in each community to make new work in all of the Facebook offices around the world. Last year Facebook supported over 125 new artworks globally. Last year, Facebook Artist in Residence program published a book surveying 225 artists’ works at Facebook over the first 5 years of the program and hosted a public art exhibition with new work by 50 of these artists in San Francisco. In the year ahead there is much more public engagement on the horizon: partnering with arts organizations, public art installations and events, and a whole lot more original site-specific art making opportunities for artists around the world.

ELIGIBILITY: This call for entries was open to artists over the age of 18 and living or working in Northern California.

AWARDS:
Juror’s Award: The opportunity to be featured as a guest artist in a future GearBox Gallery exhibit.
GearBox Gallery Award: An opportunity to exhibit in the Inner Room at GearBox Gallery.

The 2017 Bluet's Juror's Award winner, Matthew Priest, was featured in Choice Words at GearBox Gallery, May 31 - June 23, 2018

The Bluets 2017 GearBox Gallery Award winner, Deborah Benioff Freidman, was featured in Record of the Journey the Inner Room at GearBox Gallery, March 22 - April 21, 2018

The 2016 Wild Mind Juror's Award winner, Leslie Smith, was featured in Biographies at GearBox Gallery, April 27 – May 27, 2017

The Wild Mind 2016 GearBox Gallery Award winner, Tamera Avery, was featured in Off the Rails in the Inner Room at GearBox Gallery, August 31 – Sept 23, 2017

The 2015 Juror's Award winner, Spencer Pittenger, was featured in Essential Elements and Other Mysteries of the Universe at GearBox Gallery, February 18 - March 19, 2016

Read full prospectus online

Read full prospectus as a pdf

above image: left - Sarah Newton, detail, Foreshore: Baylands soil management (elev 26 ft), 20x34"
right - Nicole Anderson, detail, You Surpass Them All, 18x76"