Wrapping Paper Edition – Call for Artists

We are happy to announce a call for artists for another Wrapping Paper Edition for 2026!

Artists from western Mass and southern Vermont are invited to submit designs and proposals for wrapping paper pages from now until the September 1 deadline.

How to Apply

Please review the image requirements and hints about designing for newsprint.

Artists and designers may submit up to three design concepts before the September 1 deadline. This year we have an online, Google submission form available here: tinyurl.com/MRwrap2026. If you can’t use the online form, please send your name, address, phone number, and up to three images for a unique wrapping paper page, to features@montaguereporter.org with “Wrap” in the subject line.

We have a separate Youth category for artists who are 15 years old or younger, and will select at least one finalist from this group.

Artist Selection and design process

Selected artists will be contacted on Monday, September 14. You will then have the rest of September and October to get your design finished.

We will give each artist the space of two full adjacent pages for their design, making a double page measuring approximately 20 by 22 inches. Artists may design in full color or in black and white, and we’d love to get proposals from tattoo artists, comic illustrators, graffiti specialists, painters, street sketchers, kids, photographers, geometry nerds, type designers – all are encouraged to send us ideas for cool, original wrapping paper pages!

Remember to review the design guidelines before completing your design.

Once again we are able to offer a $200 stipend to each of seven chosen artists, thanks to the generosity of anonymous donors. Each will also receive five copies of the Wrapping Paper Edition for their personal use.

NB: Artists selected need to skip an edition before submitting again. So for 2026, selected artists from 2020, 2022, and 2023 are eligible; but not those chosen in 2024.

A little backstory to our wrapping paper issue

In 2020, we invited seven local artists to design pages for a special edition of the newspaper to be sold as unique, recyclable wrapping paper. The project became a yearly fundraiser for our little independent, non-profit newspaper in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

In 2025 we decided to vary things a little by trying a flower bulb fundraiser. A few thousand bulbs went into the ground last fall as a result, including some at community gardens, parks, and cemeteries through our “Garden Angel” program. We’d be happy to stick with flower bulbs, but there’s much fondness hither and yon for the tradition of the Wrapping Paper Edition so we will be alternating between the two fundraisers, with the wrapping paper returning this year.

Seven artists will be chosen by jury selection from submissions made between now until September 1 for the 2026 Wrapping Paper Edition. Winners will receive a stipend of $200 and five copies of the Wrapping Paper Edition (plus all the associated fame and goodwill that results!)

We will give each artist the space of two full adjacent pages for their design, making a double page measuring approximately 20 by 22 inches. Artists may use full color or black and white, and we’d love to get proposals from tattoo artists, comic illustrators, graffiti specialists, painters, street sketchers, kids, photographers, geometry nerds, type designers – please send us ideas for cool, original wrapping paper pages!

We have a separate category for Youth submissions (15 and under) and choose one entry from those each year. All of the artists will be treated to a mini-feature in the paper during the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years.

Winners will be notified by Monday, September 14 and then will have until early November to submit their finished work, at which time they will receive their stipend.

During Thanksgiving week, when we normally skip publication, we print the Wrapping Paper Edition and get it out to stores for sale. Thanks to sales of this special issue, we were able to raise nearly $4,000 toward the newspaper’s operation in 2020. In 2022, we also produced a Wrapping Paper Edition just before the holiday gift-giving season, and we were able to raise $2,200, which was less than the pandemic year sales, but still significant. In 2023, the Wrapping Paper Edition brought in $3300, with similar results in 2024.

Sales of our Wrapping Paper Edition will be available between Thanksgiving and the end of December, in local stores and online, at the special price of $5 each or five for $20.

Questions?

For more information about the project, please contact Nina Rossi at (413) 834-8800 or features@montaguereporter.org.

If you are a shop or business owner who would like to sell copies of the Wrapping Paper Edition, please get in touch with Garth Shaneyfelt at garth@montaguereporter.org.