Wharton Esherick Museums’s 32nd Annual Juried Woodworking Exhibition Wharton Esher­ick Museum

Theme: Break­ing Ground

Entry Dead­line: January 9, 2026

The year 2026 marks the 100th anniver­sary of a pivotal moment for the Wharton Esher­ick Museum that required both literal and symbolic ground­break­ing. For WEM’s Thirty-Second Annual Juried Wood­work­ing Exhi­bi­tion, Break­ing Ground, we invite contem­po­rary artists to take inspi­ra­tion from what they consider ground­break­ing, defined by any of the term’s multi­ple mean­ings. How does Wharton Esherick’s life and work seem ground­break­ing in 2026 and how might this be inter­preted through your own prac­tice? Whether public or personal, what ideas or shifts feel ground­break­ing in this complex moment in history? What ground­break­ing tools or moments have shaped your prac­tice? Is there a ground­break­ing idea that has inspired your work? What do you consider ground­break­ing about your own contri­bu­tions to the expanded field of art and design in wood? After the initial excite­ment and cere­mony of a ground­break­ing, how do we build?

With these prompts, we encour­age appli­cants to think broadly about the theme. We hope you will submit entries across a wide spec­trum of approaches, so long as they incor­po­rate wood in some way.

Jurors: Tom Loeser, a nation­ally renowned furni­ture maker and educa­tor, and Joyce Lin, artist and sculp­tural furni­ture designer, along with Emily Zilber, WEM’s Direc­tor of Cura­to­r­ial Affairs and Strategic Partnership