CALL FOR ENTRIES

We invite artists, makers, fermenters, and devoted pickle enthusiasts to pay homage to one of humanity’s most enduring, perplexing, and delicious phenomena: the pickle.

We’re celebrating the pickle in all its forms and inviting submissions for both 2-D and 3-D artwork and our Best Pickles in Richmond jarred-pickle competition.

Born of preservation and transformed by time, the pickle is at once food, process, object, tradition, memory, and cultural artifact. It can be crisp or soft, sour or sweet, humble or magnificent. It lives in jars, on plates, in family recipes, at county fairs, and in the curious space between the everyday and the extraordinary.

THE ART OF THE PICKLE: EXHIBITION SUBMISSIONS
For the exhibition, we’re looking for work inspired by the pickle, pickling, fermentation, preservation, recipes, food traditions, history, and all the strange and wonderful places the humble pickle can take us.

AND THEN THERE ARE THE PICKLES THEMSELVES.

Bring us your finest homemade, shelf-stable pickles in a sealed jar for a good old-fashioned state-fair-style competition. The competition will be juried by the official Richmond Pickle Party Festival Committee, with two main categories:

BEST PICKLED CUCUMBER
Any type of pickled cucumber is welcome. Dill, bread and butter, sour, sweet, spicy, fermented, funky, or anything in between. If it’s a cucumber and you pickled it, it’s in the running.

BEST OF EVERYTHING ELSE
Pickled carrots, onions, beans, peppers, beets, watermelon rinds, eggs, fruit, okra, garlic, or whatever wonderfully strange thing you’ve decided to pickle. If it isn’t a cucumber, it belongs here.

In addition to the main category awards (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and Honorable Mention in each category), we’ll be handing out special awards for standout pickles, including Most Creative, Sweetest, Spiciest, Most Unexpected, and more!

Pickles will be judged on texture, flavor, cut and presentation, color, and overall food safety practices. Submissions must be properly labeled with ingredients, safely canned, and shelf-stable. No quick pickles or refrigerated pickles.

Artwork submissions + pickle competition registration are due October 10, 2026.

Pickle jars will be collected during the week of the exhibition.

Who has the best pickles in Richmond? Let’s find out.

Want to know all the details about our gallery space, info for artists, and info for art buyers? Check out our FAQ!