It’s months away, but right now the call to get creative is going out.

Arts of the Pamlico is reminding artists the annual Fine Arts Show is coming soon, with an Oct. 28 artwork drop-off date and a Nov. 1 reception and awards announcement at AOP’s Turnage Theatre in downtown Washington.

“It just needs to be original work. It needs to be executed in the past two years, for sale and also not previously shown in another fine arts show,” said Thad Aley, AOP’s art exhibits and events coordinator.

This year’s show includes a new category — pastels — in addition to oils and acrylics, watercolors, graphics/open-medium and 3-D art, which includes sculpture, ceramics, fiber arts, paper, jewelry and more.

“The only medium we will not take for our Fine Arts Show is photography, because we do our own photography show especially for that medium,” Aley said.

This is the 54^th year for the annual show, which actually predates the arts organization that hosts it. That the show continues to thrive, and artists continue to submit, speaks volumes about its importance, according to Aley.

“To me it just shows how strong and embedded the artistic community is to Little Washington, to Beaufort County and even beyond. We continue to pull more people into this community because we have such a strong artistic base. They see the arts community and they want to be here, even non-artists,” Aley said. “It’s kind of like one of those sleepy-town, underlying things that just quietly pulls people in. For 54 years to have a fine arts show just shows how it is a part of that fabric.”

Aley said the key to the event’s success is just as much driven by the many Fine Arts Show volunteers as the art.

“Since it does predate the arts council, it just shows how much we rely on our volunteers and lovers of art to keep it going. There are people who have been doing this for year after year, almost since the beginning, so we can flip the show in literally four days and have it juried and hung and ready for the reception. It’s an amazing amount of work that goes into putting this show together,” Aley said.

The final prospectus for the show will be available at the beginning of September. For more information, call AOP at 252-946-2504.