Art in the Metroplex, which began at TCU nearly thirty years ago, has a new home.

After a brief hiatus, Fort Worth Community Arts Center, located at 1300 Gendy St., will now host the exhibit, gallery manager Elaine Taylor said.

The exhibit, which is free and open to the public, will run Oct. 3 – Oct. 30. Taylor said she expects it to draw between 300 to 500 guests.

In its early days, Art in the Metroplex was a collaboration between TCU and Templeton Arts Center [formerly known as Committee for an Artists’ Center], Taylor said.

“TCU wouldn’t have anything in their gallery right when students first came,” she said. ”This was a way to have the community sort of show off their best works.”

TCU faculty newcomer Sara-Jayne Parsons will juror the event.

“Sara-Jayne Parsons is currently the exhibitions curator at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, UK,” a FWCAC news release said. “She will be the new director of the galleries at TCU starting fall 2014, lending a link to the former home of Art in the Metroplex.”

There were various reasons why the exhibit ended at TCU, Taylor said, including financial as well as time commitments.

“There was a gap. The last one they did was in 2011,” she said. “I saw a need that it was really an important show in Fort Worth.”

In an overview of the exhibit, art historian Scott Barker wrote that Art in the Metroplex was the brainchild of Beth Lea Clardy, a 1940 TCU art graduate, and former TCU art chair Ronald Watson.

“At the time of Art in the Metroplex’s inception, exhibit opportunities were few for local artists unaffiliated with a gallery or professional organization,” he wrote. “To fill the need, Art in the Metroplex offered impartial judging, generous cash awards and was open to any Metroplex artist over 18 who wished to enter one or more original works created within the last two years."

Fort Worth Community Arts Center, which Taylor said hosts about 80 shows per year, will be seeking submissions for this year’s exhibit until August 25 from 19 counties, including Tarrant, Dallas, Collin, Cooke, Denton, Ellis, Kaufmann, Navarro, Rockwall, Somervell and Wise. The submission entry fee is $35, and several thousand dollars in prizes will be awarded.

“The fun thing and scary thing for us is we don’t know what we are going to get,” Taylor said.