NEWSLETTER

February 2026

Call for Art

Mindful: The Art of Compassion

Deadline for Submissions: this Sunday, February 8th at Midnight

OPENING RECEPTION

Feb. 26th 5-7pm

The Color of Hope is currently on display at Broad Street Presbyterian and will be on display until February 19th.

More information and the online store can be viewed here

OAL Artist Meetup

Wednesday, February 18th

Damianne Fischer

Artist of the Month

Shelley Brenner Baird

Shelley was one of our award winners in the 2025 Fall Juried Competition.

Learn more about her artwork on the Artist of the Month page.

Take our member survey

Thank you for being a valued member of the Ohio Art League! As we look toward the future, we want to ensure our programming, membership structure, and leadership align with your needs. This anonymous survey will take approximately 8–10 minutes to complete. Your feedback is vital to our growth.

OAL Member Survey

Artist Opportunities

*Spring Juried Exhibition Call Coming Soon*

GCAC Project Support

Hit the Hop - Studios on High

Ohio Shorts Call for Entries

Echo Artists in Residence Program

Columbus Funny Art Showcase

SEE TOUCH BUILD

President's corner

2026 is off to a great start! We have several exciting exhibitions currently on display. Sue Swihart's work is being showcased at Gateway to the Arts through March. You can still see The Color of Hope at Broad Street Presbyterian Church. Additionally, the next exhibition in the Mindful Series, Mindful: The Art of Compassion, will open at the church on February 26th from 5-7 PM, featuring artists from OAL in this community-centered event.

For February, our Artist of the Month is Shelley Brenner Baird, an OAL artist known for her expressive and thoughtfully crafted work that combines strong design with a personal voice. Shelley recently received a juried exhibition award, making this a wonderful opportunity to explore her artwork and unique creative perspective.

Artists are encouraged to begin thinking about new work for the upcoming Spring Juried Exhibition, a signature event for OAL. I also hope you will take a few moments to fill out our online survey. This information will help us make decisions moving forward that will support our members. Additionally, members interested in contributing to OAL’s leadership and growth are invited to learn more about upcoming board opportunities.

-Julian Cennamo

Tour of Tacita Dean

Blind Folly exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art 

Rescheduled for Wednesday, February 25th at 10am

with Docent, Gisela Josenhans. Limited to 11 OAL members. RSVP: oal@oal.org.

Fee: General Admission to CMA

Tacita Dean: Blind Folly is the first major museum survey in the United States of work by British European visual artist Tacita Dean (b. 1965). The exhibition, organized in close collaboration with Dean, spotlights her career-defining approach to creating art through unmediated and chance-based drawing processes across a variety of mediums, from film to printmaking. Blind Folly, the show’s title, reflects Dean’s desire to let the behavior of her mediums dictate the results of her work. For the artist, the playful and old-fashioned phrase connoting foolishness, “blind folly,” represents the role chance and fate play in the creative act.
Blind Folly brings together several of Dean’s monumental blackboard drawings along with rarely shown drawings from her studio on paper, found postcards, albumen photographs, and 16mm films. This selection includes several newly created works, some of which were inspired by Dean’s residency at the Menil Collection’s Cy Twombly Gallery, a Renzo Piano-designed building devoted to the work of late American artist Cy Twombly (1928–2011).