Cape Ann Plein Air, one of the country’s largest “plein air” art festival competitions, has opened its annual call for artists, formally kicking off the 2025 event and its ninth season. Applications are open now and due on April 2, 2025.
Scheduled for October 4-12, 2025, the juried competition and festival is open to all artists, both professional and amateur, to apply to participate in the weeklong community event. This event is among the top five plein air events in the country, awarding over $20,000 in prizes. It also provides a welcome boost to the local economy, drawing thousands of visitors to Cape Ann.
CAPA’s competitive online jury process will select 34 professional plein air artists who will descend on Cape Ann and create original paintings onsite throughout the week, capturing life and landscapes around Rockport, Gloucester, Essex and Manchester. The festival offers daily artist demonstrations, nightly live painting events at local restaurants, and a climactic end-of-week week ending art sale and gala.
Plein air painting is the creative approach of capturing a scene on canvas in the moment, outside a studio without help of extra tools or photographs or an indoor setting. Now in its ninth year, CAPA has become a nationally acclaimed public art festival by focusing on Cape Ann’s unique place as the birthplace of American plein air painting.
The organization’s co-presidents Beth Buckingham and Pat Alto emphasize that Cape Ann Plein Air artists will create more than 400 original pieces of art during the festival week, all celebrating the unique vistas of all five Cape Ann communities. By offering an opportunity for the public to purchase these works, the artists themselves are also supported.
In addition to the annual weeklong event in October, CAPA holds community "paint out" events throughout the year that encourage hands-on plein air painting, including youth programs with local nonprofits and schools to engage artists from all generations and walks of life. The idea is to build community and enrich regional culture.
Information at www.capeannpleinair.org; Instagram - capeannpleinair; Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/capeannpleinair/
