Artists invited to showcase their work on billboards

The ArtPop billboard competition has been expanded to an 11-county region, and now includes $500 cash scholarship for the winner of the high school contest.
In addition, Kutztown University is offering a $2,500 scholarship if the winning high school student enrolls in a Kutztown University degree program.
The idea is to provide a platform to share the work of artists with a broad audience. Entries for the annual competition will be shown on Adams Outdoor Advertising billboards throughout the region.
Launched in 2014, ArtPop is a public art initiative that showcases the work of area artists on Adams billboards for an entire year. For the past several years, Adams has partnered with the ArtPop Street Gallery, the Pocono Arts Council, and ArtsQuest’s Banana Factory Arts Center to offer two competitions — one in the Poconos and another in the Lehigh Valley. Starting this year, all of the partners will join ArtPop Eastern Pennsylvania, open to artists from suburban Philadelphia to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton region. Eleven artists, including the high school competition winner, will be selected by the official ArtPop jurying committee. The final winner will be chosen by a public vote. The 2019 competition is open to artists in Berks, Bucks, Lackawanna, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Pike and Wayne counties in Pennsylvania, as well as Warren County in New Jersey.
“ArtPop has been very well received by both the arts community and the public since its inception, with the program’s footprint and the number of participating artists growing with each passing year,” says Adams Outdoor Advertising General Manager Tony Cioffi.
Kutztown University Foundation Executive Director Alex Ogeka says Eastern Pennsylvania is home to a diverse array of talented artists.
"We are excited to showcase just a few of them through this competition," he said. "We’re also thrilled to provide our first cash scholarship, good for any college or university, to the high school student who wins our scholastic competition and honored that the Kutztown University Foundation has increased its scholarship money available to students.”
ScheduleEntries will be accepted now through Nov. 9. All ArtPop winners, with the exception of the People’s Choice Winner, will be selected by the ArtPop jurying panel in early November. From Nov. 13-16, the public can vote online at bananafactory.org/artpop for its favorite work for the People’s Choice Winner. All winners will then be announced Dec. 13, 5:30 p.m., at the Stroudsmoor Country Inn in Stroudsburg.
Winners’ works will be installed on Adams billboards in early January.
Artists interested in participating in the ArtPop competition should submit a digital image of their two-dimensional or three-dimensional work online atbananafactory.org/artpop. Artists must provide their name, complete address, email address, title and mediums of the original work of art and a one-paragraph biography. Cost to enter the competition is $20 for adults and $10 for high school students.
“The feedback I’ve been receiving about the new ArtPop format is overwhelmingly positive,” says Susan Randall, Executive Director of the Pocono Arts Council. “The Pocono region is the proud birthplace for this program, with the original concept for ArtPop evolving out of a program we partnered with ArtPop founder Wendy Hickey on when she was with Adams Outdoor Advertising 2002. Our board of directors, staff and members of the Pocono Arts Council are pleased to watch ArtPop bloom and grow. We are also excited about hosting the artists' reception at Stroudsmoor Country Inn in Stroudsburg — the place where it all began!”