The Griffin Museum is pleased to open multiple calls for entry for various opportunities in our community. Please see the below links for pages to the unique calls’ specifications. Check back for more updates!
Member Opportunities
31st Annual Juried Member’s Exhibition, 2025
Exhibition Dates 2025 | June 27 – July 27, 2025
Our annual Juried Members’ Exhibition is intended for all creative artists using photography as a primary medium, highlighting still images and including moving images, installation, and public works, experimental and mixed techniques for inclusion in our summer exhibition.
See the final selections included for our 30th Annual, juried by Getty Curator, Mazie Harris, here.
Submission 31st Annual will open in March 2025. We are so pleased to announce our juror will be Ann Jastrab from Center for Photographic Art, Carmel.
Winter Solstice – A celebration of our creative member community
Exhibition Dates 2024 | December 13 , 2024- January 5, 2025
Our Winter Solstice exhibition celebrates the works of our photo community in all of its splendor. We love sharing your vision with the world, and look forward to our annual gathering of images, ideas and vision.
In 2023 we showed almost 300 prints, and this year we are putting together ideas to get even more work on the walls, including video work and sculpture. Information about this year’s extravaganza will be posted in October.
2024 Online Submission information opens October 1st, with shipping of prints starting on November 4th. More information and submission info coming soon.
SUBMIT YOUR WORK TO WINTER SOLSTICE 2024 HERE
Exhibition Opportunities
Griffin Museum Photobook Exhibition –
Exhibition Dates 2025 | June 27 – August 21, 2025
We welcome entrants who wish to display their self published and handmade photobooks in the Griffin Gallery for exhibition in the summer of 2025. Winners will be given the opportunity to donate a copy to the Griffin Library Collection for posterity. Juried by Karen Davis of Davis Orton Gallery, and Crista Dix, Executive Director of the Griffin Museum.
See the final selections for the 2024 exhibition here.
Submissions for the 15th Annual Photobook Exhibition wll open in March 2025.
Vision(ary) –
Exhibition Dates 2025 | TBD June – September
Vision(ary) | Portraits of Cultures, Communities, and Environments will feature over 20 artists, all dedicated to the art of visual storytelling. Filling the Winchester community with public art, Visionaries will feature six banners on Shore Road, six banners on Skillings Road, and about 10-12 installation cubes, all presenting work by winners of this call for entry.
See the work of the selected artists for this year’s Vision(ary) here.
2025 information coming soon
Our Town –
Exhibition Dates 2025 | TBD June – September
Our Town assembles a collection of artwork that celebrates everyday life in our town of Winchester. Designed to highlight the photography of our Winchester residents, the exhibition will be displayed on the construction fence at the Winchester Town Common from June to September 2024, as well as in an online format.
See the 2024 edition of Our Town here.
2025 information coming soon
Scholarships & Residencies
John Chervinsky Emerging Photographer Scholarship –
The John Chervinsky Emerging Photographer Scholarship seeks to recognize, encourage and reward photographers with the potential to create a body of work and sustain solo exhibitions. This year, the prize was juried by Arlette & Gus Kayafas, Frazier King, and Bruce Myren.
We are pleased to announce Bridget Jourgensen as the 2024 Chervinsky Prize Winner. See the announcement here.
Exhibition Date – December 13, 2024 – January 5, 2025
The announcement of jurors and next submission date will be in January 2025.
The Richards Family Prize – Submissions open now through October 31, 2024
The Griffin Museum is proud to support emerging, mid-career and professional talents in the field of photography. We support visual artists with dynamic and creative ideas that challenge and progress the art form forward to new heights in vision and technology. Our support of photography is broad, from Fine Art to Documentary and Photojournalism, from digital to film-based works and cameraless images. The Richards Family Prize is a scholarship support mid-career photographers producing work that is creative and original.
This $4,000 scholarship is open to professional and mid-career photographers worldwide. We define “professional” as any photographer who earns the majority of their income from photography. We define “mid-career” as any photographer with some visibility in exhibitions, gallery representation and scholarship and residency success in their photography career.
The winning submission, in addition to a cash prize to assist in production of the work, will have a catalog produced by Griffin Museum Press and an exhibition in our Winchester Museum in December 2025.
Submissions through our Cafe portal opened Monday September 16th.
Press here for Application to the Richards Family Prize through Cafe Portal.
Application period closes at 11:59 PM Mountain Time Thursday October 31, 2024
Meet our Juror, Aline Smithson
Aline Smithson is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, educator, and editor based in Los Angeles, California. Her practice examines the archetypal foundations of the creative impulse and she uses humor and pathos to explore the performative potential of photography.
Smithson has exhibited widely including over 50 solo shows at institutions such as the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, the San Jose Art Museum, the Shanghai, Lishui, and Pingyqo Festivals in China, and numerous others.
In 2007, Smithson founded LENSCRATCH, a photography journal that celebrates a different contemporary photographer each day. She has been the Gallery Editor for Light Leaks Magazine, a contributing writer for Diffusion, Don’t Take Pictures, Lucida, and F Stop Magazines, and has written numerous book reviews for photo-eye. Smithson has curated and juried exhibitions for a number of galleries, organizations, and on-line magazines, including Review Santa Fe, Critical Mass, Flash Forward, and the Griffin Museum. In addition, she is a reviewer and educator at many photo festivals across the United States. Smithson has been teaching at the Los Angeles Center of Photography since 2001 and also teaches at a variety of institutions such as the Griffin Museum, ICP, SFW, MMW, and others.
The Cummings Residency Program – Submissions open now through November 10, 2024
The Cummings Residency Program works to select from a nationwide search, multiple artists of differing backgrounds, including but not limited to ethnicity, age, social, financial and cultural backgrounds to come to Winchester and engage with our local communities. Each artist will have a three-month residency engagement and a $5,000 stipend. Using their specific skill set, work to create a photographically based exhibition as a result of their connection to the Griffin Museum, Winchester and surrounding areas, while engaging in critical dialogues about art and culture with both the youth and adult community they inhabit. Using photography as a bridge to building relationships, the Artist In Residence creates a series of community portraits opening up the pathways to multicultural understanding and acceptance. The museum and its partners are creating a visual literacy program centered around imagery, using photography as the tool, working with professional artists to talk about their communities, cultures and new and shared origin stories.
Press here for Application to the The Cummings Residency Program through Cafe Portal.
Application period opened on Monday September 16, 2024 –
Application period closes at 11:59 PM Mountain Time Sunday November 10, 2024
We will be awarding 2 residencies for 2025. The winning submissions will have an opportunity to arrange their residency in 2025 and 2026.
Meet Our Jurors –
Alanna Airitam (Cummings Fellow 2023)
Alanna Airitam is a photographer whose work transcends traditional boundaries, incorporating elements of other materials such as metal, resin, varnish, and gold leaf into her captivating compositions. With a focus on lighting, staging, and processes referencing particular eras in art history, her portraits and still lifes often takes on a painterly quality that invites viewers to explore hidden histories and stories that have led to a lack of fair and honest representation of Black Americans.
Driven by a relentless pursuit of truth, Airitam delves into the complexities of storytelling and the subjective and indefinite nature of truth. Through the lens of photography, she seeks to unravel the secrets of the past, drawing upon the belief that a photograph is proof of existence, the closest thing to an irrefutable truth. Her work challenges preconceived notions through the incorporation of both digital and film processes, as well as the manipulation and construction of images, offering a fresh perspective on the nature of truth itself.
Influenced by the power and beauty of Black people, the strength and creativity of women, and the dream of a world where individuals are free to shape their own lives without interference, Airitam finds inspiration in the syncopation of jazz and the transportive nature of music, the art of storytelling, and the endless possibility of the human spirit. Her work also draws from the colors, lighting, and scale of 17th-century Renaissance paintings, as well as the legacy of Black studio photographers from the 19th century.
With a three-tiered approach to their audience, Airitam creates art first and foremost for herself, seeking personal fulfillment and self-expression. She also aims to connect with other People of Color, particularly Black women, sharing stories of resilience, creativity, and the contributions of Black people to American culture. Lastly, she strives to engage with a broader audience, encouraging them to see the positive potential for human existence, to recognize beauty, and to embrace love.
Airitam’s work has garnered recognition and acclaim, with exhibitions at esteemed institutions such as the Center for Creative Photography, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. She has also showcased her art at prominent art fairs, while her work has been collected by institutions and individuals and displayed in galleries across the United States.
Believing in the transformative power of art, Airitam seeks to inspire individuals to reflect upon their own stories and the impact they have on others. She reminds us that we are all creators, shaping narratives through our experiences and dreams. From her early beginnings as a young girl seeking refuge and control in the world of art, Airitam continues to create work that invites viewers to escape, to question, and to reimagine the possibilities of our shared human existence.
Airitam believes in giving back to the community through her service as Co-founder of the Southwest Black Artists Network, Oakwood Arts Board Member, and Board Member for Medium Photo. Born in Queens, New York, Airitam now works and resides in Tucson, Arizona.
Rodrigo Valenzuela (Cummings Fellow 2024)
Rodrigo Valenzuela (b.Santiago, Chile 1982) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, where he is the Associate Professor and Head of the Photography Department at UCLA. Valenzuela has been awarded the 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography and Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship; Joan Mitchell award for painters and sculptors; Art Matters Foundation grant; and Artist trust Innovators Award. Recent solo exhibitions include: New Museum, NY; Lisa Kandlhofer Galerie, Vienna, AU; Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene; Orange County Museum; Portland Art Museum; Frye Art Museum, Seattle. Recent residencies include: Core Fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; MacDowell Colony; Bemis Center for contemporary arts; Lightwork; and the Center for Photography at Woodstock.
The Griffin Museum was thrilled to have both Alanna Airitam and Rodrigo Valenzuela as our first Cummings Fellows. We are grateful to the Cummings Foundation for their support of the arts and the Griffin Museum.
