Every year the Greater Denton Arts Council runs an international juried craft exhibition called Materials: Hard + Soft. The 2027 edition is the fortieth. Entries close on 10 October 2026, and if you make things by hand anywhere near Dallas-Fort Worth, this is probably the most winnable serious show on your doorstep.
We are entering it. This page is our working notes, kept public because we could not find a plain-English summary anywhere and someone else is likely looking for the same thing.
What it actually is
A juried competition and exhibition at the Patterson-Appleton Arts Center in Denton, in the Meadows Gallery. Forty years old, which matters. A show with that much history carries real weight on a maker's record, and it is the kind of line a gallery or a customer actually recognises.
It is open to local, national and international artists. You do not need to be represented, invited, or known. You need work and thirty-five dollars.
Accepted media are broad: clay, fibre, glass, metal, paper, wood, any combination of those, plus conceptual and digital work. Ready-made materials are allowed. Work must have been completed in the last three years, and must not have been shown at the Patterson-Appleton Arts Center before.
The dates
Entries close 10 October 2026, at 11:59 PM Central. Notification goes out 9 November. Contracts are due 28 November. Accepted work ships or is delivered between 5 and 9 January 2027. The exhibition runs 26 February to 8 May 2027, opening with a reception on the 26th from six to eight, with awards announced at seven. Work is collected back between 10 and 22 May.
Read that timeline properly before you enter, because it has a consequence people miss. If your piece is accepted, it leaves your hands in early January and does not come back until late May. That is nearly five months during which it cannot be sold, photographed for anything else, or shown anywhere. For a one-of-a-kind piece, that is a real cost and it should be a conscious decision.
What it costs and what you can win
Thirty-five dollars, one time, non-refundable. That covers up to three entries, so the second and third pieces are effectively free, and there is no reason to enter only one if you have three that are ready. Members of the Greater Denton Arts Council get five dollars off.
Awards are two Juror's Choice prizes of one thousand dollars each, plus four prizes of four hundred and fifty for Best Quality Craftsmanship, Best in New Media, Most Innovative Use of Materials, and The Storyteller.
Jurors for 2027 have not been announced yet.
Two requirements that will catch people out
The first is weight. Nothing over seventy-five pounds. That rules out most case furniture and a good deal of solid-timber work, so check before you fall in love with the idea of entering a dining table.
The second is more subtle and more important. All work must be ready to hang.
Read that again if you make freestanding objects. A sculpture that stands on the floor, a stool, a vessel. If it is not fitted with proper hanging hardware, it does not meet the requirement as written. Sorting that out is not difficult, but it is a fabrication job with a deadline attached: a French cleat or a keyhole hanger, fitted properly, rated for the actual weight, and tested before the piece is crated.
There is also a commission to account for. Thirty percent is retained on anything sold during the exhibition. That is normal for a gallery show and not a complaint, but it needs to be in your pricing before you set a figure on the entry form, not discovered afterwards.
What we are entering
Three Strings, most likely: a carved sculptural piece, thirty inches, comfortably inside the weight limit, and finished in 2026, so it sits inside the three-year window.
The hanging requirement applies to it directly, and that work has to happen before January.
We will not list this on our exhibitions page unless it is actually selected. A record of what you entered is not a record of anything.
Where to apply
Submissions go through CaFÉ, the Call for Entry platform. You will need an account and images that meet their specification, and it is worth reading the image requirements before you shoot rather than after.
The official call is on the Greater Denton Arts Council site, and the listing with full submission details is on CaFÉ. Both are linked below. Where anything here disagrees with them, believe them and not us. We are a maker keeping notes, not the organiser.
Greater Denton Arts Council call: dentonarts.com/materials-hard-soft-call
CaFÉ listing: opportunities.wearecreativewest.org/opportunity/17346/CAFE