SCA open 2026

A Celebration of the Artists Shaping Our Region

Opening Reception: November 1, 2026
Exhibition: October 30 – December 6, 2026

The Sausalito Center for the Arts is proud to present SCA Open 2026, our annual juried exhibition celebrating the extraordinary depth, range, and vitality of artists from across the Bay Area and beyond.

Launched in 2025, the inaugural SCA Open struck a powerful chord with the creative community, drawing an incredible response from nearly 600 artists and almost 1,500 submissions. The result was an exhibition alive with discovery, featuring works that reflected the imagination, skill, and complexity of our region’s artistic landscape.

In 2026, SCA Open returns with even greater momentum.

This year’s exhibition will be shaped by three exceptional jurors, each representing a distinct and important perspective within the art world: museum, gallery, and educational institution. Together, they bring a rich range of experience, discernment, and vision to the selection process, creating an exhibition that reflects not one way of seeing, but many.

SCA Open is more than a juried exhibition. It is an invitation to look closely at the artists working in our time and place. It is a celebration of artistic risk, craftsmanship, storytelling, beauty, experimentation, and voice. It honors the established artists whose work continues to deepen and evolve, while creating space for emerging artists whose perspectives help define what comes next.

For Sausalito, a city long rooted in creativity, the SCA Open continues a powerful cultural legacy. Once home to the famed Sausalito Art Festival and generations of artists drawn to its waterfront light, bohemian history, and spirit of possibility, Sausalito remains a place where art and community meet. At the Sausalito Center for the Arts, that legacy is being carried forward through year-round exhibitions, programs, performances, and gatherings that bring artists and audiences together.

This exhibition fills the galleries with work that speaks to the moment we are living in, while also reminding us of art’s enduring ability to move, challenge, connect, and inspire.

Join us for SCA Open 2026 and experience the remarkable artists helping shape the creative future of our region.

Exhibition Dates: Friday, October 30th to Sunday,  December 6th
Opening Reception: Sunday, November 1, 1pm-6pm
Artists’ Closing Reception: Sunday, December 6, 3pm-5pm
Location: Sausalito Center for the Arts, 750 Bridgeway, Sausalito
Admission: Free and open to the public

Call for Entry

The Sausalito Center for the Arts invites artists throughout California to submit work for SCA Open, our annual juried exhibition celebrating the breadth, vitality, and creative excellence of artists across the region. The exhibition will be on view from FRIDAY OCTOBER 30th to DECEMBER SUNDAY 6th in the historic waterfront community of Sausalito.

This Call for Entry welcomes work in all mediums except video and AI-generated artwork, and will be juried by three distinguished leaders representing a museum, gallery, and educational institution, bringing a dynamic range of perspectives to the selection process.

Located in the heart of downtown Sausalito, Sausalito Center for the Arts welcomes more than 30,000 visitors each year and was recently voted Best Gallery for Art in Marin County by the Independent Journal and Pacific Sun.

SCA uses Cafè Call for Entry for submissions. The fee is $35 for the first and $10 for each additional up to 3. Artwork must be for sale and be dropped off & picked up at SCA at 750 Bridgeway, Sausalito. Sorry, no shipments accepted.

Learn more and submit your artwork HERE.

Entry Deadline: Sunday, August 23th – 11:59 PM

Artists Notified: Week of September 14, via email

Artwork Dropoff at SCA – 750 Bridgeway, Sausalito:
Wednesday 10/21,  11am – 4pm, or
Thursday 10/22, 11am – 4pm
Note: No shipments accepted.

Artwork Pickup: December 6 following Artist Closing Reception, 5-6pm, or Monday, December 7th 11-4 at SCA.

2026 Jurors

Nancy Lim is associate curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). She is currently preparing an exhibition on Northern California craft, 1945-1980, opening next year. Previous exhibitions include Creative Growth: The House That Art Built (2024), Chiura Obata (2023–24), Hung Liu: Witness (2023), New Work: Anna Sew Hoy (2023), and Joan Brown (2022–23). Prior to SFMOMA, Lim held curatorial positions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York.

Danielle Fox currently oversees operations for SLATE Art LLC, directs SLATE Contemporary Gallery, manages SLATE’s Public Art program, and curates collections for key private and corporate clients. She has also served as a Member of the Board of the San Francisco Art Dealers Association and Oakland Art Murmur, and is a member of Art Table. Danielle has over thirty years of experience in the art world as a teacher, writer, editor, and curator; as Deputy Director of Business Development at Sotheby’s in London; founder of SLATE Contemporary Gallery in Oakland since 2009; and Principal Partner of SLATE Art Consulting since 2014.

Chester Arnold is a Bay Area painter who has exhibited and taught in area colleges for more than three decades. His large narrative oil paintings deal with many contemporary issues and may be seen in collections the San Jose Museum of Art, SF MoMA, the Nevada Museum of Art and other institutions across the country.   A major show of his new work opens at the Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, June of 2026, where he has been represented since 2003.

SCA OPEN 2025