Art Trail Application Pack
13th and 14th September
APPLICATION PACK
Thank you for your interest in exhibiting on the Wirksworth Festival Art Trail 2025.
Please read this pack carefully before submitting your application. Even if you have exhibited before, make sure you read the whole pack and confirm acknowledgement of our terms and conditions. It will make completing the application form easier and give you more details about the event.
CONTENTS
- The Art Trail
- The Venues
- Health & Safety
- Marketing & Promotion
- Selection Application Categories
- Making Your Application
- Terms & Conditions
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS:
17:00 on Saturday 15th MARCH 2025
QUESTIONS?
If you have any questions about the application process contact:
The Festival Office
[email protected]
John Wheeldon – +44 (0) 7788 101904
Martin Brooks – +44 (0) 7944 620137
The Art Trail
The major event of the Festival, the Art Trail involves local people opening their homes to turn the town into a multifaceted gallery with over 140 Artists & Makers exhibiting and selling their work in more than 70 venues. The exhibition spaces are not galleries they are in buildings ranging from charming stone cottages to impressive Georgian townhouses, historic and quirky buildings, gardens, courtyards, shop windows and Civic Buildings and Churches.
For Visitors the Trail is the perfect way to meet Artists; talk about the work and buy affordable contemporary art. For Artists it is the opportunity to meet customers face-to-face; talk about their work, get feedback, make sales and build new relationships.
We welcome applications from contemporary Artists and Designer/Makers of any disciplines which are suitable for display in our venues.
The Venues
The Trail uses two types of venue:
- Private Homes and Community / Partner buildings eg: The Parish Room or The Church
- The Town Hall and The Memorial Hall.
Private Homes and Community / Partner Buildings
Our venue hosts very generously agree to let the Festival and exhibiting Artists use their home / space during the Trail Weekend free of charge. Every Artist is expected to respect this, taking steps to ensure there is no damage or disturbance to the venue during the weekend and ensure the space is restored to its original condition at the end of the weekend. The hosts are invaluable to us, and we ask all Artists to show their appreciation.
…It was a brilliant weekend. Loads of visitors engaged with the work. The venue was wonderful and host super friendly.
Quality of curation exceptional too!Thanks for having me.…
(Artist hosted in a private home)
The Town Hall and The Memorial Hall
These two venues offer 34 ‘tabletop’ spaces for the two Maker Markets. There are no hanging facilities, and they are only suitable for smaller work eg: Jewellery, Ceramics, Glass etc. 1 table and 2 chairs are included for each exhibitor.
Spaces in the halls are limited and only available to Makers who make their own work – no bought in stock. If you wish to be considered for one of these markets, please ensure you select this option on the application form.
Access
Most of our venues are private homes and therefore may not be completely accessible for individuals with restricted mobility. If you have specific access requirements, you will be able to let us know when you confirm any offer made.
The Town Hall and the Memorial Hall are fully accessible for Artists/Makers wishing to be considered for the Maker Markets.
Venue Allocation
All venue allocations are at the discretion of the Festival and while we do try to respond to specific requests, we must consider a wide range of issues when allocating Artists to venues and it is not always possible to meet everyone’s requests. You will be informed of your venue by mid-July, at which point you will need to contact your venue host directly to introduce yourself and discuss details. In the event an Artist feels a venue is not suitable they should contact the Festival as soon as possible and no later than the end of July. Any requests for venue changes will not be accepted after this date. You should provide details of why you feel the venue is not suitable. Please note the actual location is not considered a valid reason to change the allocated venue. We will consider requests but cannot guarantee an alternative venue is available.
Health & Safety
All participating Artists need to be mindful to ensure the health, safety and welfare of themselves, their hosts and others. The Festival shall not be held responsible by any exhibitor or their staff / agents or members of the public for any injury or loss due to negligence or unsafe displays or goods. It is the responsibility of all Artists to consider safety in all aspects of their participation in the Festival, and to follow instructions from Festival staff.
Insurance
The Festival accepts no liability for damage to or loss of work or other equipment either on display or in transit. Artists must take out their own insurance to cover all risks associated with their participation in The Trail.
All participating artists must have Public Liability Insurance (PLI) for a minimum of £5 million sterling and give details and send evidence of cover when confirming an offer of a place. (see Terms & Conditions)
… This was the first time I had participated in the Festival and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I was made to feel very welcome by both your Team and other Makers. The standard and quality of everything was fabulous. It was lovely.
To meet so many incredible visitors who just added to the feel good vibe that surrounded the town.
Thank you!…(Artist at the Town Hall Makers Market)
If you don’t already have insurance most UK insurance brokers will be able to arrange Public Liability Insurance for you or you may want to look at specialist insurers eg:
The Artists’ Information Company: a-n.co.uk where annual membership entitles you to Public & Product Liability Insurance and Professional Indemnity plus access to a huge range of useful resources.
Ian W Wallace, Specialist Insurer: craftinsurance.co.uk
Marketing & Promotion
The Festival works with partners to promote the Festival as a whole and the individual Artists appearing.
We ask all selected Artists to help us promote the Festival through their wider networks and social media. Marketing resources will be available to help.
All Artists will have a profile page on the Festival website with their Artist statement and images.
The production of the Festival marketing material, including the Trail Guide and web listings, depends on the provision of information by the Artist on the application form. The Festival accepts no liability for any errors or omissions in its advertising and promotional material.
The Festival reserves the right to crop submitted images and edit the Artist statement to suit specific publicity needs
… Lovely space, good strong tables, well-advertised, great range of Artists there, very busy all weekend, good info pack, the Town Hall is a great space …
(Artist at the Town Hall Makers Market.)
The Selection Process
The Art Trail is a selected event chosen by a panel of five including some or all the following:
Practicing Artists and Makers, Curators
Academics and Arts Managers
Festival Trustees
We receive many more applications than we have space for and even if you have been selected before there is no guarantee of a place every year. During selection we also select a small ‘Reserve List’ who are offered a place if one becomes available.
All Artists who have acknowledged our terms and conditions, fully completed the application form and included their four images will be considered by the selection panel.
Selection will be based solely on the submitted application and must meet at least two of the following criteria:
- High quality of concept, realisation and making.
- Challenging and contemporary ideas.
- Work of interest and relevance to our audiences.
- Exceptional level of engagement with chosen medium.
- Innovative ideas of design.
The selection panel’s decision is final and due to the high number of applications considered each year the panel is unable to give feedback to individual Artists.
Application Categories & Fees
Your application is free!
Successful Application Categories:
a. Visiting Artist
£125.00 fee
This category is open to any Artist who is not a permanent resident in Wirksworth. If accepted onto the Trail these Artists will be allocated a venue by the Festival in which they may exhibit their work.
b. Resident Artist
£50.00 fee
This category is only open to Artists who wish to exhibit in their own home in Wirksworth i.e. Artists who permanently reside all year round in Wirksworth in the house in which they will be exhibiting their own work.
If an Artist does not meet this criterion, then they will be deemed to be a visiting Artist and must pay the relevant fee for a visiting Artists. Resident Artists will be automatically accepted onto the Trail but they must have insurance, complete the application process, pay the Resident Artist fee and adhere to all the Terms & Conditions.
c. Designer Makers
£125.00 fee
Artists wishing to apply for a space in one of the two Maker Markets should select that category on the Application form and complete the form in full.
d. Young Resident Artists
Under 18yrs £20.00 fee
The Festival wants to help support young Artists taking their first steps into exhibiting and therefore offers a discounted rate to exhibit on the Art Trail. The Young Artist category is only open to residents exhibiting in their own home and they must have permission from a parent. They should complete the application form in the same way.
Making your application
All applications must be made through the website.
Images
All Artists are required to submit FOUR good quality images which show clearly the work they wish to exhibit. All the images you send are put before the selection panel so quality is paramount. Poor quality images are often the reason why good Artists don’t get selected. The selection panel looks at hundreds of pictures and blurry images photographed against a chaotic background are unlikely to be selected.
The images of your work to be considered must:
- be a good representation of the work you wish to exhibit.
- be less than 3 years old
- be the sole work of the Artist making the application
If selected, the Artist grants the Festival license to use the submitted Images for marketing purposes.
Copyright remains with the Artist who acknowledges that the Festival is not responsible for any copyright infringement as a result of this permitted use.
Image Description
As part of the application, you are asked for a description of each image which should include the media used to create the work, the size and title of the work (if applicable)
Image Size & Format
Please ensure each of your FOUR images conforms to our requirements detailed below. Small, low- resolution images are unlikely to be selected so take your time.
- All your images need to be high resolution and saved as jpgs.
- No individual image should exceed 2MB.
- No image should be bigger than 2500 pixels on the longest side
Rename your images
It is important you rename your images to fit into our system.
You need to name the image as follows:
Your surname, your Initial and a number from 1 to 4. For example. Artist Wendy Young’s four images would be named:
Young W1.jpg Young W2.jpg Young W3.jpg Young W4.jpg
Artists Statement & CV
As part of your application, you will be required to provide an up to a 100-word statement which should include a description of your work and working methods. If selected, the text will be used for the Festival website and in other marketing, including print.
It is therefore important you:
- make sure the spelling and grammar is correct.
- make sure the text is suitable for the public.
In addition to the Artist statement, you can choose to upload a relevant CV detailing your career in more detail. This CV may be referred to as part of the selection process if the selectors require additional information.
And finally…..
Please add both our email addresses to the trusted contacts list in your email programme and contact book to ensure you do not miss our emails.
and
[email protected]
You are able to save your application and complete it in a second session, however, I would recommend you get everything together and just complete the application in one go.
Before you begin your application make sure:
- Your four images are formatted and named in the correct manner.
- You have your image descriptions ready.
- Your, up to 100-word Artist Statement is written, checked and ready to upload.
- Your current CV is ready to upload