2nd Annual Berkshire Pride Art Exhibit Artists Panel @ Becket Arts Center

Local queer artists share what inspires their work, their experience being an out artist, & why celebrating queer artists is so vital now.

AMPLIFYING QUEER CREATIVITY: In thIs Artists Panel you’ll be able to meet the diverse group of local LGBTQ+ artists selected by our jury to represent the extraordinary diversity & creativity of local artists. Learn about what inspires & informs their work, how their work has evolved, and why it is so important to celebrate queer artists in these times when many of them are being defunded, silenced, and even erased from history. These local artists are daring to create work that moves and inspires them, and that hopefully will move you and the many others who support diversity and amplifying queer creativity while others try to silence it.

As recent government actions try to erase and defund all Diversity, Equity & Inclusion efforts in government, education, & the arts, a coalition of local organizations (Becket Arts Center, Q-MoB, Berkshire Queer History Project) is responding in a very creative Berkshire way: they are hosting the 2nd Annual Berkshire LGBTQ+ Pride Art Exhibit featuring local LGBTQ+ artists at the Becket Arts Center, 6/13-7/5 and calling on local LGBTQ+ artists to submit work for the exhibit by 3/1/26

LGBTQ artists have been integrally involved in building and sustaining all of the arts institutions in the Berkshires for more than 200 years, and have been woven into the fabric of the creative economy that makes the Berkshires famous all over the world. So of course in 2025 a coalition of local organizations want to celebrate their contributions by showing their works at a special Pride Exhibit at the Becket Arts Center. Many people know the famous LGBTQ artists who have created world-famous works in the Berkshires like Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, & Ted Shawn, but fewer people know the many local queer artists who make the works we see in our homes, businesses, local stages, galleries, & museums. This Pride Exhibit is for those artists who are your neighbors, colleagues, & friends.

The Berkshire Queer History Project (BQHP) will be on hand filming stories from both artists and their patrons about the local LGBTQ+ artists who have made our lives better by making, exhibiting or performing in the Berkshires. This exhibit is a chance for BQHP to capture stories about past, present, and emerging LGBTQ artists and hear their stories in their own words -- about the importance of local art, about their process of making art, and the ways their queerness does and does not affect their work.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBIT: After 5/15, click this Exhibit Link to learn more about the exhibit and the artists who are featured in it.

ARTISTS PLEASE CLICK TO SUBMIT WORKS FOR THE EXHIBIT BY 3/1/26