The 10th annual OVAC calendar highlights Oxford artists

A group of local artists are coming together to create the 10th annual calendar through Oxford Visual Arts Connection (OVAC), a project created to connect artists with the Oxford community.

OVAC founder Joe Prescher said the organization was created in response to a need for greater connection among arts and the community. 

“At the time when I got here, the arts community was kind of small and a little disconnected,” Prescher said. 

The project began with a suggestion on the Facebook page to create a calendar featuring local artists. Prescher then created a committee to produce the first calendar using artists from the Facebook page and volunteers interested in helping. 

“I just put it out on our page, ‘Is anybody interested in being on a calendar?’ And I got some volunteers,” Prescher said. “People offered up their artworks, and we just gathered them up and sent them to a printer and made a calendar.”

Prescher received a loan from the Oxford Community Arts Center (OCAC) to help cover the costs of producing the first calendar. The group then sold them through local retail establishments and used the proceeds to repay the loan. Afterward, some of the money was able to be donated back to the OCAC. 

The calendar eventually developed into an annual project, preceded by an art exhibition featuring the artists.

Artists provide their calendar piece as well as additional work to display and sell to the community. 

The OVAC Facebook page has grown to over a thousand people within a 25 mile radius of Oxford. More than 120 of these artists have been featured in the calendar since the project began. 

Artists are allowed to participate in the calendar more than once. Prescher said there is a five-year stagnation on repeat volunteers, allowing more artists to participate.

There is no jurying process for the calendar. The calendar is announced on Facebook and other local community pages, and the first 12 or 13 people to respond are selected.

“For the most part, there's no evaluation of the artists or their skills or their training or anything like that,” Prescher said. “We just take the first 12 people, put them in there and introduce them to the wonderful world of art.”

Prescher himself has been featured in the calendar twice. He appeared in the first edition as well as the most recent for his bee mural in Oxford. The mural has a strong connection to community art and the town’s bee festival. 

Artists are given a wide range of freedom with what they can submit for the calendar. The calendar has no specific theme, and artists are not required to do anything seasonal or Oxford-related. 

“It's just supposed to be art, any kind of art. The weirder the better,” Prescher said. “It's just made for full expression, as free an expression as you can get.”

The project's organizational committee also changes every year. Prescher said the committee has ranged from two people to about eight people.

This year, the project has four committee members in addition to Prescher: Donna Danoff, Marina Lee, Emily Grisell and Kathy Goldman. 

The 2027 calendar is complete and being distributed to the OVAC community and the OCAC. The calendar will be in local retail stores through the end of the year. Prescher said he hopes to eventually expand distribution in the coming years. 

The relationship between OVAC and OCAC has continued throughout the years of the calendars’ production. The organizations are separate, but many of the OVAC artists are instructors or resident artists at the arts center. OCAC helps promote and sell the calendar by putting it in their shop and hosting the exhibition. 

The artwork for the 2027 calendar will be displayed at the OCAC on Dec. 11 as part of the 2nd Friday Celebration of the Arts event, which will also include music. 

The exhibition will remain on display through February 2027, giving the artists more time to show off their work with the community.