Featured Exhibits
About our Gallery Space
The exhibition gallery space is upstairs in a fully restored 1909 Carnegie Library. The 440 square foot gallery has 96 feet of movable wall space, flexible track lighting and a large selection of pedestals.
Featured Artist Exhibitions
The Featured Artist exhibitions represent the highest quality art by emerging, mid-career, and established artists from the local, Eastern Oregon region and larger Pacific Northwest region. We strive to show a broad and diverse range of visual art styles.
Solo exhibition proposals and group proposals are considered.
The selection process takes place once a year. Submission guidelines will be posted here in our forms library.
Submission Guidelines posted: August 1st
Proposal deadline: November 30, 2024
Artists notified: January 2025
2026 Featured Artist Application Guidelines
Past Exhibits
View all our past exhibits here.
Upcoming Exhibits
Open Shows
Each year Crossroads hosts three open shows to welcome new and established artists, as well as an emerging artist/student show in January.
Bonus Open Show March 2025: Beyond the Rim: The Beauty of the Bowl
We are so happy to to add a special open show to the mix this year celebrating the classic and satisfying shape of the bowl. We are accepting 2D and 3D artwork in all mediums to display on First Friday March 7th so bring in your work by March 4th. No late entries will be accepted. Elevated bowl sculpture will also be on display that are part of the personal collections of our patrons. But the star of the show are bowls that are exquisite, unique, pushing boundaries, or just beautiful bowls made by artists throughout the region.
This celebration of the bowl is inspired by "Feed the Arts" annual soup dinner which will be held on March 8th this year wherein a ticket will buy a unique handmade bowl, soup, and the fixings for a complete meal as a fundraiser for our "Hand to Heart" scholarship fund. We are also looking for potters to donate small bowls for the soup dinner. So, whether you want to donate soup bowls or display your work in the gallery, March is all thigs BOWL!
April Theme Show- Each year the Gallery Committee of Crossroads selects a unique theme to challenge artists to create a new work of art. This year, 2025, the theme is Object d' Art wherein an artist will randomly be handed an object from a bin filled with various items. It will inspire a piece of work that could incorporate the object in any way the artist chooses. This theme is back by popular demand and we encourage artists to pick their objects as early as the start of 2025. A People's Choice Prize will be awarded.
September Open Regional "Art at the Crossroads" is the largest and most beloved show of the year. It is a judged show with awards and cash prizes equaling 2,400 dollars for artists in a variety of mediums. This includes the $1000 Barbara Wilbur Family Fund Award! The theme for the Wilbur award in 2025 is Sculpture.
(The call for artists will be coming out around June/July)
December Open Show- The Gift of Art and Ornament Expo provide artisans and makers a wonderfully festive opportunity to have items for sale for holiday gifts. (Call coming out in October)
CALL FOR ARTISTS for these shows will be in the Forms Library on the Website and in the bolded imbedded links above.
Image: 2024 September Open Regional winners: John Clement-Finest Photograph; Claire Remsberg-Best of Show; Debra Otterstein-1st Place 2D; Paul Hoelscher-Peoples Choice.
Barbara Wilbur Family Fund Award
Will honor outstanding efforts from area artists. Each year, an artist will be selected from the September Open Regional Show “Art at the Crossroads” to receive the award. We hope the award will celebrate and advance the arts at Crossroads, enhancing excitement and enthusiasm for their exhibits.
Each year the show judge will award a $1000 award to an artist in a category selected by the family honoring Barbara's Artistic legacy.
In 2023 the award category is: “A Unique Lens”
The award will recognize a fresh and novel approach to the work’s subject, design or other elements of the composition. For example: a bird in flight caught from an unusual viewpoint; an abstract pattern of colors creating a perplexing presentation of space.
"Crossroads provided a wonderful community and artistic resource for a significant part of my life, especially in later years. During the nineteen-sixties, I was able to pursue my art after work with a group in town that preceded Crossroads. Returning to Baker City after living in Portland, Crossroads on Main Street became my second home. Then Crossroads moved into its current location at the Crossroads Carnegie Arts Center, becoming the crowning glory for the celebration of art in Baker City.” Barbara Wilbur
Annually Crossroads will announce the new category for the award.
Barbara Wilbur
Barbara Lee Wilbur died on August 23, 2022. She will be sorely missed by family and friends. Here she is, in her own words:
My great-great-grandfather was one of the first settlers in Eagle Valley. My grandfather, Fred Simonis, raised sheep in the valley. My mother, Ruth Simonis (nèe McDowell), was my earliest artistic inspiration. My high school art teacher in Bend, Or., Mr. Burlingame, encouraged us to create our artistic monogram (even in high school!) and keep it for the rest of our lives. To this day, I still use my “SI” monogram.
I graduated from Eagle Valley high school in 1944 and married soon after. I raised four children: Tamara Lee Henden (former administrator for the Consul General of Japan in Portland); Neil John Wilbur (deceased); Daniel Scott Wilbur, Ph.D., (cancer research scientist and Medical School professor emeritus at the University of Washington); and Obie Brian Simonis, (international Boston-based sculptor). I also have five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren!
Four kids moved my art to the sidelines for a lot of years. I needed a change, so in 1972 I attended Portland Community College and took two years of commercial art. I then transferred to Portland State University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Art. All the while, I worked part-time for Safeway, also keeping track of three college-aged kids. It was interesting attending college with your kids!
I retired from Safeway after 30 years, having returned home to Baker City. Now that I am retired, I spend most days working in my garden, doing art and playing pinochle.
Image: Ethnographic Women #1 Ceramic Sculpture by Barbara Wilbur.
My art…In college I found that I enjoyed working in ceramics. Since I was physically unable to do wheel work, I learned to hand-build. I have long admired the work of primitive-style potters. I love and enjoy the black pottery of Mexico that I have seen in my travels. Over the years, I find myself appreciating pottery from all origins in its most basic and primitive form. Working and exhibiting at Crossroads Art Center, I love to burnish pots using a polished agate in the native style. I developed my own unique style, and enjoy working with my hands.
Image: Ethnographic Women #2 Ceramic Sculpture by Barbara Wilbur
