WILD Spartanburg Poster Contest | Spartanburg Area Conservancy
Written by Alix Refshauge, Development Associate, Spartanburg Area Conservancy
Have you ever seen the iconic National Park Posters from the 1930s and ’40s? They were beautiful serigraphed posters originally produced by the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Federal Art Project to promote travel to the National Parks. Few of the original prints remain but the original screens were restored and artists are currently reproducing those images as posters/stickers etc. which you can easily purchase today. Pretty cool, right? Equally exciting is that through the WILD Spartanburg Poster Contest, you’ll be able to purchase posters and stickers of your very favorite Spartanburg nature preserve's sometime in 2020! Also cool.

In October, SPACE and the Tyger River Foundation, with support from the Chapman Cultural Center, launched the WILD Spartanburg Poster Contest. This project invites artists from all-over Spartanburg County to submit a poster design by January 15, 2019, of one of the following places: Berry Shoals Bridge, Cottonwood Trail, Glendale Shoals, or Nesbitt Shoals.

From the images that are submitted, we’ll choose 20-30 to print as posters for an exhibition that will take place at the Headquarters of the Spartanburg County Library and will run February through April of 2019. From those entries, one artist will be selected to create posters of the other three nature preserves by the end of the year. They’ll also walk away with a cool $2,500 and the eternal gratitude of our organizations.

We’re excited about this project as an opportunity to showcase some of the beautiful natural spaces in Spartanburg while encouraging environmental conservation. If you’re interested in applying or learning more about it, please e-mail me at alix@spartanburgconservation.org

*Photos provided by SPACE
This project is funded in part by Chapman Cultural Center, its donors, the County and City of Spartanburg, and the South Carolina Arts Commission which receive support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of SC.