Community Exhibitions

Design a life-sized shield to help us celebrate the opening of our upcoming Arms and Armor Galleries. Selections are to be announced in September.

We are searching for six imaginative designs to decorate the walls in our Education Wing when we open our new Arms and Armor Galleries. The Worcester Art Museum welcomes artists of all skill levels—experts and amateurs—whether they are painters, sculptors, craftspeople, or creative individuals to a submit a drawing of the design on one of the templates provided. A panel of experts from the Worcester Art Museum will select the most outstanding designs for this once-in-a-lifetime gallery opening.

Each artist whose design is selected will be provided with a 32” x 20” triangular or 36” in diameter round canvas covered wooden shield that can be picked up between September 15 and September 21. Deadline for the finished shield will be November 7.

How to Submit

1. Choose a topic below and get inspired.
2. Download the submission template and start creating!
3. Fill out the submission form and attach your design. Submissions are due September 5, 2025.
4. We will reach out to you if your design has been selected.

Topic Choices

• Life in Worcester: Designs that celebrate the history of Worcester.
• In reference to the WAM collection: From our Global armor to our colorful prints.
• Artist Choice: Artists are encouraged to exhibit their individual vision and style while experimenting with any idea or theme that speaks to them.

Coinciding with the opening of the Worcester Art Museum’s new Arms and Armor Galleries, this community call exhibition invites artists to submit their works featuring arms and armor. Any and all interpretations are welcome. Show us your arms and armor, fictional and realistic, from the past, present, and future, and from any place on earth – or beyond!

Since its inception, the Center for Nonviolent Solutions has worked to provide education and resources that help the Worcester community reject the use of violence for resolving conflict and understand nonviolence and peacemaking as a way of life. Simultaneously, Lee Mingwei’s Our Peaceable Kingdom exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum showcases multiple visual responses to Edward Hicks’ painting of similar name, asking the question, “What is peace?”. In the spirit of envisioning and creating a safe, healthy future we would love to see your visual interpretation of the question, “What does peace look like in your community?”