25th Annual Juried Members’ Exhibition
Exhibition dates: July 18 – September 1, 2019
Reception: July 18, 2019 7-8:30 PM
Juror: Julie Grahame
Julie Grahame gallery walk/talk 6:15 PM, July 18, 2019 and will do a curator in residence reviews as well. Reviews are July 19th.
67 Shore Road, Winchester MA 01890

Photo of Julie Grahame by Michael Putland

Juror Julie Grahame’s Statement for the 25th Annual Juried Exhibition: Griffin Museum of Photography
“I like a good challenge and the entrants to the 25th Annual Juried Exhibition certainly gave me one. The volume of good work made it tough, even though I had the right to choose up to 60 images… I chose the full 60 and I could have squeezed in a couple more. This is quite rare, and I hope the artists who were not chosen understand that due to the quality and quantity of entries some good images couldn’t make the cut.

When jurying I want to assess each image on its own caliber, I want to choose things that are not necessarily my personal taste but whose merits are obvious – rating for technicality; composition; originality; a refreshing look at something oft-seen; an entire story in one frame.

In first place, I chose Sunjoo Lee’s “Black Memorabilia” as I found the series so sumptuous, and am looking forward to seeing it in rich print. In second place is Scott Nobles’ fantastic series that made me giggle out loud, so well executed and adorable. Brian Kossof’s “Posts” from his nighttime long exposures has its wonderfully simple elements that make up a poetic image. All together I am pleased with a grand spread of styles and subjects across the 60 finalists.

There were quite a few fantastical images, perhaps a comment on the current state of affairs and a need for escape. Also trending are a look back at family photos, bringing contemporary elements to family histories. It’s always pleasing to see classic work, like a strong but quiet black and white landscape, alongside a fresh digital construction. Thank you to all the artists who shared their vision with me. Keep it fresh!” -JG

* Editor’s note: One photographer withdrew from the exhibit for personal reasons and one photographer didn’t send a photograph for the exhibit. One photograph was eliminated due to it being a second image for one photographer. The Director of the museum chose a director’s prize making the number of images in the exhibit 58.

Exhibitors

Raymond Avitable
Jim Baab
Sandra Bacchi
Craig Becker
Gary Beeber
Sarah Belclaire
Barbara Boissevain
Jen Bilodeau
Jay Boersma
Marilyn Canning
Ellen Cantor
Bill Clark – Honorable Mention
Cheryl Clegg
James Collins
Robert Dash – Honorable Mention
Norm Diamond
Kristen Emack
Heather Evans Smith
Maureen Fahey
Nicholas Fedak II
Jennifer Georgescu
Danielle Goldstein
Anna Grevenitis – Honorable Mention
Silke Hase
Daniel Jackson
Andrew Janjigian
Leslie Jean-Bart
Paul Jett
Jamie Johnson
Marky Kauffmann
Brian Kosoff – Griffin Award
Sunjoo Lee – Richards’ Family Trust Award
Toby MacLennan
Brian Malloy – Honorable Mention
Lawrence Manning
Ralph Mercer
Robert Moran
Bruce Morton
Rebecca Moseman – Honorable Mention
Rita Nannini
Maeda Naohiro
Scott Nobles – Arthur Griffin Legacy Award
Roger Palframan
Marcus Parsons
Zoe Perry Wood
Lori Pond
Astrid Reischwitz – Honorable Mention
Tabitha Robinson
Stanley Rowin
Russ Rowland – Honorable Mention
Gordon Saperia
Janet Smith
David Spink
Alison Stewart
Kathleen Taylor
JP Terlizzi – Honorable Mention
Rich Turk
Yelena Zhavoronkova

Director’s Prize – Patricia Bender

4 exhibitions for June 2020 and July 2020 – Ryan Zoglin and Lauren Ceike/ Melanie Walker and Molly McCall

Member in Focus – Amy Wilton

Purchase Prize – Andrew Janjigian

Mark Feeney’s Globe Review

What Will You Remember’s Review

What Will You Remember’s Interview With Julie Grahame

—————————————————————————

See Portal entry in Submission Requirements below. Portal opens morning of February 24, 2019.

AWARDS: $2,500 Richards Family Trust Award, $1,000 Arthur Griffin Legacy Award, $500 Griffin Award, and Honorable Mentions. We will award 4 exhibitions that will take place next June and July 2020. We will award 1 Director’s prize that will result in a catalog and exhibition. We will produce a catalog of the 25th Juried exhibition. We will produce an online exhibition from photographs not chosen by the juror and it will run on Instagram as well. We will award a Member in Focus.

ELIGIBILITY: This Call for Entries is open to all member photographers. Entrants must be members of the Griffin Museum of Photography (with an expiration after 4/1/2019). We do not advocate for members to join the museum just for this juried opportunity only. We always welcome new members as part of our family and offer a broad range of member opportunities. While some opportunities are for long distance members like our on-line classes, we are working on increasing our offerings this year for distance members. There is a membership level for Distance Members. The Griffin Museum invites member photographers working in all mediums, styles and schools of thought to participate. Experimental and mixed techniques are welcome. There is no theme. The juror will choose between 50 – 60 photographs. We ask the juror to TRY not to choose more than one photograph per photographer. The juror will choose the recipients of the monetary awards. We encourage submitting images from a singular, unified body of work for a cohesive selection for the Juried Exhibition. Artwork selected for gallery exhibition will be limited to FRAMED SIZE of 30×40 inches and under.

JUROR: Julie Grahame is the publisher of aCurator.com, a full-screen photography magazine, and the associated aCurator blog, one of the ten best photo sites named by the British Journal of Photography and one of Life.com‘s top 20. She has represented the estate of Yousuf Karsh for licensing for 14 years. Grahame is an independent consultant, reviewer, writer and speaker.

PROGRAMMING: Alongside the juried exhibition, the Griffin Museum will organize a series of professional development workshops presented by a diverse range of thought leaders. These workshops will share instrumental ideas, methods and tools to help build the business and legal foundation of a thriving artistic practice.

HANDLING FEE: The handling fee is $25 for 5 images. We have kept our handling fee very low for many years. *The fee is waived for institutions who have Academic Memberships to the Griffin for their photo students and faculty.

SUBMISSION TIMELINE: February 24 – April 24, 2019 at midnight (We want to get the images to the juror in the last week of April.)

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS:

• Must be a member of the Griffin Museum of Photography through April 2019. Availability to renew membership here.
• All images must be submitted as jpeg files, sized to 1200 px on the longest dimension, 72 dpi is fine, and in Adobe RGB or sRGB color space only.
• Files should be titled as follows: LastName_FirstName_Title_ImageNumber (Ex. Smith_John_Sunset_01, Smith_John_Flower_02)
• All entries that do not adhere to the guidelines above will be rejected.
• $25 Handling Fee
• Upload through our portal  5 images. 8 images can be submitted for members at the dual level ($75) or above.
• We ask for an artist project statement copied and pasted from word file or typed into application.

MAILED SUBMISSIONS:

Please include a title sheet, artist statement and information page including: Name, E-mail, Address, Phone and proof of membership or membership renewal form.

Prepare your images to the same specifications.

Burn images to CD and mail to:

Griffin Museum 25th Juried Submission

67 Shore Road

Winchester, MA 01890

ACCEPTANCE NOTIFICATION:
Selected artists will be posted on the website by June 6th, 2019. Please do not call the Griffin Museum to inquire whether your images were chosen. We have very limited staffing. We will send you a status letter if you were selected or not selected.

IMPORTANT DATES:

• Entries: February 24 – April 24, 2019 at midnight.
• Notice of Acceptance on the website: June 6, 2019 or earlier.
• Final day framed works will be accepted to hang July 9, 2019 although earlier is appreciated.
• Gallery Exhibition at the Griffin Museum: July 18 – Sept 1, 2019
• Opening Reception: July 18, 2019 @ 7pm
• Juror gallery walk/talk 6:15 PM on July 18, 2019. Juror will do a curator in residence review as well. Info to come.

EXHIBIT PRINTS: All accepted images submitted for exhibition must be printed and framed professionally with either glass or plexi. The Griffin Museum recognizes that some work is non-traditional and incorporates the framing as an integral part of the presentation. Artists will be responsible for shipping their framed images to The Griffin Museum in advance of the gallery show and for supplying a pre-paid return-shipping label. The FRAMED size may not exceed 30×40 in. We have found that images mounted on aluminum have a high damage rate. We cannot be held responsible for any damage to photographs mounted on aluminum.

SALES: All work accepted for the gallery show can be for sale. The Griffin Museum will retain a 35% commission on the sale of any work.

 USE RIGHTS: Artists maintain copyright on all of their work. By submission, artists grant The Griffin Museum the right to use their images for the purpose of marketing the exhibition and other Griffin Museum programs; and for reproduction online and in a print exhibition catalogue. Artists grant the use of their image(s) as stated without further contact or compensation from the Griffin. Artist’s recognition is provided with any use. Submitting artists will be added to The Griffin Museum’s monthly newsletter subscriber list. They may opt out using a link on each newsletter at any time.

Please retain this information and your filename information for your files until after announcement of the jury selection.

Statements

Polaroid Possibilities: SX-70 Constructions
As a young artist in 1975 I was given an SX-70 camera as a gift.  I had grown up with Polaroid cameras in our house; my father was a quintessential Polaroid family photographer, shooting a pack or two at every holiday or event.  From roll film to pack film that process left an indelible mark on my photographic sensibility I did not yet know I had.  In 1975 I was a senior in art school at SUNY Geneseo, studying with Michael and Rosemary Teres, my two teachers who opened me up to experimental photographic techniques and combinations of photography and painting.  The SX-70 was a novelty and I really did not know what to do with it.  I photographed soap opera characters off of the TV screen and began to employ the surface manipulation technique that Lucas Samaras had used so effectively in his “Photo-Transformations” series from 1973.

In the fall of 1975 I entered the MA program at the University of Iowa to study with John Schulze.  My work then was primarily experimental black and white processes from solarization to reticulation and composite printing.  My influences were experimental photographers such as Man Ray, Todd Walker, Herbert Bayer and Jerry Uelsmann.  Equally important were the influences of painters such as Rene Magritte, Max Ernst and Francis Bacon.  At a studio shoot arranged by the students I brought the SX-70 camera in addition to my 35 mm equipment.  A fellow grad student, Rick Valencenti also had an SX-70 camera and told me about a stripping technique he was using to take apart his images, remove some of the emulsion and replace it with paint or collage elements.  That to me was a revelation and I quickly abandoned my surface manipulated SX-70s in favor of what I would refer to as “emulsion stripping”.  In a short time, this became my primary means of image making.  Having combined alternative process photographs with paint for several years prior it was a natural to replace the SX-70 removed sections with acrylic paint, ink drawing and collage elements.  The true beauty of the process is that it was all done from behind, leaving the SX-70 frame intact and from the front it appeared as if it was a normal SX-70 photograph.  For me this was part of the aesthetic, this perfect consumer photographic process generating these surrealist scenes as apparent instant moments.  It fit well with my belief that photography was a mythic medium and that its verisimilitude was an illusion. – JR

Polaroid Possibilities: Polacolor Image Transfers
When SX-70 film was changed in the late 70s it rendered my techniques impossible and I needed to find a new medium that could replace that excitement and creative working experience.  For a year I dabbled with my own invention of a hybrid film type, combining 4×5 Polacolor negative and SX-70 positive.  It was such an obscure medium that people did not know what they were.  I moved on to Polacolor Image Transfer for a number of reasons, the primary one was the desire to work on paper as well accessing the larger scales that the film offered.  I had worked on paper in many of my drawing and painting classes in college so was really comfortable adding color and marks to the transferred photographic image.  In the later years of reworking the SX-70s and the 4×5 hybrids I began to use an airbrush to apply the paint inside the frame.   I carried this over to the 8×10 Polacolor transfers I made in 1981 and it was my preferred way to apply paint for several years.  The earliest 8x10s, such as “Sympathy” shows the airbrush off as the gouache partly obscures the background to bring the photographic image out of context.  All of the early series was shot live with an 8×10 Deardorf camera.  Despite the beauty of the image quality from the large negative I was more interested in the fact that it was on paper and soon sought out different ways to capture that image.  I began to experiment with video as a source image, which was a precursor to working with digital input in the early 90s.

By 1983 I was creating image transfers with the 20×24 camera even though controlling a floppy negative that large was difficult.  The dyes did not always make it perfectly on the paper and it took me several years to figure out that this could be a good thing if I only adopted a more painterly approach to the reworking process. From 1987 through the early 90s the 20×24 transfers were my exclusive method of working.  There were two main series, first the Androgyne from 1987 and 1988 and then the Spirit of Pere La Chaise series depicting the statuary from the famous cemetery in Paris.  As this second series progressed the reworking technique morphed from paint to the use of pastel and dry pigment, rendering the final image with fresco like surfaces.  In the early 90s I was invited to photograph at the building that would become the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.  With abandoned spaces from the late years of the  19^th Century they became great backdrops for me to combine digitally with figures from my own collection of 19^th Century tintypes and cabinet cards.  These were produced in both 8×10 format as well as 20×24 and the treatment was very different.  The 8x10s were lightly colored and enhanced while the 20x24s employed the more painterly look of the pigment and pastel.

By the late 90s I began to use digital technology more thoroughly and while occasional single pieces were completed as late as 2001 I consider the body of work to have concluded in 1999.  In 2017 I decided to create two new 4 panel pieces for an exhibit of the transfer work.  It was the first time I returned to the process in 16 years.
– JR

Bio
John Reuter was born in Chicago and raised in California and New York.  He attended undergraduate school at SUNY Geneseo and graduate school at the University of Iowa, receiving an MFA in 1978.  By the end of 1978 he had taken a position at Polaroid as a research photographer and in 1980 moved over to be the main photographer in the 20×24 Studio.  From 1980 and through the 1990s the 20×24 program became the cornerstone of the Polaroid Artist Support Program.  The New York studio was a key part of that program and Reuter worked with artists William Wegman, Joyce Tenneson, Chuck Close, Mary Ellen Mark, David Levinthal, Robert Rauschenberg, Ellen Carey and many others.

Throughout those years Reuter strove to continue his own artistic pursuits despite the full time schedule of the studio.  The SX-70 work, which deconstructed the film packet to introduce painted and collage elements was the first major body of work he created with Polaroid materials.  Rendered obsolete by technical changes to the SX-70 film this work remains a favorite of the artist.  Seeking a new format Reuter began working with Polacolor II peel-apart film in 1981 to create images with the “image transfer process”.  This process allowed the dyes from the film negative to be printed on watercolor paper in lieu of the shiny and sharp Polacolor positive.  This became a starting point for a reworking process that enhanced or transformed the image with materials such as retouching dyes, watercolor, pastel and dry pigment.  Scale could now be part of the process as Reuter employed 8×10, 20×24 and multiple 20×24 panels to create works up to 40×50 inches.

By the late 90s Reuter began the transition to digital imaging and no longer made the final prints with Polaroid materials.  He continued to run the 20×24 camera for other artists as it remained part of the soon to be bankrupt Polaroid Corporation.  By 2008 he was able to work with Elsa Dorfman and her investor friend Dan Stern to purchase a significant amount of the 20×24 film inventory, camera and production equipment.   The camera and original Polaroid film remain viable and are still available for artists and photographers to use.

In 2014 Reuter embarked on a documentary film project titled “Camera Ready: The Polaroid 20×24 Project.  It chronicles the origins and history of the project with interviews with artists, writers, curators and some key people at Polaroid who made it possible to survive beyond the demise of the company itself.

Reuter remains the Director of the 20×24 Studio and is also an adjunct professor of photography at the Hartford Art School.

CV

Website

Curator’s Statement

About the Curator, Barbara Hitchcock
Barbara Hitchcock, former Cultural Affairs director, joined Polaroid Corporation in the 1970s in a research and development capacity. In 1978 Hitchcock joined Polaroid’s international division publicity department where she frequently appeared as a Polaroid spokesperson on national and international television/radio broadcasts.

Since 1982, Hitchcock was responsible for the strategic marketing communications and program planning, development and execution of Polaroid’s cultural activities. She acquired fine art photographs for Polaroid, managed its multi-million dollar art collections and its traveling exhibitions. She has been the curator of numerous exhibitions and has authored essays for many publications, most recently Desire for Magic: Patrick Nagatani 1978 – 2008; Private Views: Barbara Crane; Victor Raphael: Travels and Wanderings; The Polaroid Book; Emerging Bodies: Nudes from the Polaroid Collection and The Polaroid Project: At the Intersection of Art and Technology.

Hitchcock has served as a juror for several non-profit galleries, for ASMP of New England and for the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

In 2006, the Griffin Museum of Photography presented its Focus Award to Hitchcock for her critical contributions to the promotion of photography as a fine art. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to photography from the Photographic Resource Center in 2010.

Hitchcock received a BA in English from Skidmore College, a PDM certificate from Simmons Graduate School of Management, and honors in business administration and journalism at Boston College.

Curator’s Statement
John Reuter is an artist. He makes photographs and videos, draws and paints, and yet he is perhaps most well-known as the individual behind the hands-on magic of the giant Polaroid 20×24 camera; a person who sets aside his own aesthetic and artistic practice in order to help his fellow artists realize on film what each envisions in his or her imagination. His creativity, technical abilities and generous spirit are gifts that he shares to insure their success.

When Reuter turns his energies to creating his own artwork, he often photographs cabinet cards, tintypes, antique paintings and similar items from his collection. As these images made with SX-70 films develop, he cuts, peels apart, pushes, scrapes, paints, and collages the film’s interior surfaces, transforming his subjects into newly conjured images with reconstructed narratives. These final SX-70 miniatures pay homage to the giants of Surrealism and Expressionism – Herbert Bayer, Max Ernst, Lucas Samaras and Moholy-Nagy, among others – the luminaries who influence Reuter’s unconventional artistry.

The landscape which has been classically portrayed for centuries in art — crosses from traditional perspectives to unexpected, dreamlike impressions when Reuter mixes digital infrared “film” with his idiosyncratic view of botanical gardens. Have we entered Alice’s Wonderland?

Using various formats of Polaroid Polacolor film, Reuter takes advantage of the exposed instant film’s characteristic transfer of dyes from the negative to watercolor paper that he substitutes for the film’s standard positive. The color dyes don’t always transfer completely, a flaw that Reuter seizes as an invitation to fashion what he sees in his mind’s eye. In Reuter’s hands, oil pastels, airbrushed acrylics and dry pigments facilitate the image’s metamorphosis from traditional photograph to fresco-like artifact.  Consequently, straight photographs of family members, funerary statues, Renaissance maidens and religious figures are reimagined. Harkening back to the ideals of Romanticism, what was corporeal is no longer; it has become ethereal and transient, diaphanous and mutable.

“Shadows and Traces: The Photography of John Reuter” celebrates the artist’s innovative exploration of film technology, photography and painting coupled with his imaginative reinterpretation of people, places and things that have populated the real world. Reuter reinvents the past, stimulates our imagination, and encourages us to enjoy this flight into a familiar, yet somewhat unconventional, alternative universe.

Barbara P. Hitchcock
Independent Curator and former Curator, The Polaroid Collections

Mark Feeney Boston Globe Review

Suzanne Révy What Will You Remember

The Eye of Photography

For the sixth year, The Griffin Museum is inviting all of its current members to exhibit in the Winter Solstice Exhibition. From across the world, artists will enter one piece to be on display for December 2018. Photographs will be presented in the Main Gallery of the Griffin and display a spectrum of genres and processes. The opening reception is Thursday, December 6, 2018 from 7-8:30 PM. Sales are encouraged and many artists have donated the proceeds back to the Griffin.

Prospectus

CALL FOR ENTRIES: WINTER SOLSTICE SHOW
Griffin Museum of Photography’s ALL Members Show

Exhibit dates: December 6 – December 30, 2018
Reception: December 6, 2017 from 7-8:30pm
67 Shore Road, Winchester MA 01890

ELIGIBILITY: This Call for Entries is open to all Member photographers. There is no entry fee.

Entrants must be members of the Griffin Museum of Photography (with expiration after 12/08/2018). The Griffin Museum invites photographers working in all mediums, styles and schools of thought to participate. Experimental and mixed techniques are welcome. We accept only one image that you’ve carefully considered. Artwork submitted must be original and by the submitter. Framed images must be no larger than 16 x 20 inches framed. Frame must be ready to hang.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Work must ARRIVE at the Griffin between November 16, 2018 – November 30, 2018.

We are not open on Mondays. Our hours are noon to 4 PM. If you need something outside of those hours, call us to see if we can handle your request.

HOW TO ENTER:
Use the digital portal on our website for submitting:

1. Submit jpg file of photograph. 300 dpi rgb. more or less 4×6 inches. Name your file: your last name_your first name.jpg. We will use images for website, to plan layout, for media and possibly for catalogue if found we can handle it in time.
2. Sale Price
3. Title of Photograph
4. Creation Date
5. Medium (i.e. archival inkjet print, silver gelatin print)
6. Size of framed print
7. Download loan agreement on website, read, sign and return to the Griffin Museum with framed piece. Any questions email: iaritza@griffinmuseum.org.
8. Download Winter Solstice Form and attach to back of framed piece, filled out.
9. Will piece be dropped off or shipped?

Loan Agreement: LAST NAME_ First NAME_Loan_Agreement_ or Word Doc version 
Winter Solstice Form to go on back of frame: Winter Solstice Form to go on back of framed print

If we do not receive submission before November 30^th (when work is due in museum) work will not be included.

IMAGE PREPARATION:

• Framed and ready to hang
• Framed piece may not exceed 16×20 inches
• Must include artist name on the back of your frame with form attached.
• Must include complete form sheet on the back of frame

MAILED SUBMISSIONS:

• Please include complete Winter Solstice Form link and return to Griffin Museum to put on back of framed piece.
• Label package “Winter Solstice Members’ Show 18”
• Must include return shipping label with package

Mail to:

Griffin Museum Winter Solstice Show 2018
67 Shore Road
Winchester, MA 01890

We will ship immediately after show so please expect to receive the package soon after the exhibition is over. (See loan agreement link for more information)

DROP OFF / PICK UP:
The museum does not have sufficient space to store work that has been dropped off. Work can not be removed from wall on Dec. 30, 2018. You are responsible to pick-up immediately after the exhibition is over on January 8, 2019 from noon – 4 PM. We need to organize 150 pieces for return.  (See Loan Agreement link for more information)

EXHIBIT PRINTS: All images submitted for exhibition must be printed and framed professionally with either glass or plexi. The Griffin Museum recognizes that some work is non-traditional and incorporates the framing as an integral part of the presentation. Artists will be responsible for shipping their framed images to the Griffin Museum in advance of the gallery show and for supplying a pre-paid return-shipping label. All must provide the signed Loan Agreement Contract and Winter Solstice Form. See link above. (To Come)

SALES: All work accepted for the Winter Solstice gallery show must be for sale. The Griffin Museum will retain a 35% commission on the sale of any work with the option to give all proceeds to the Griffin Museum. Thank you so much if you choose this option.

USE RIGHTS: Artists maintain copyright on all of their work. By submission, artists grant the Griffin Museum the right to use their images for the purpose of marketing the exhibition and other Griffin Museum programs; and for reproduction online, social media and in a print exhibition catalogue. Artists grant the use of their image(s) as stated without further contact or compensation from the Griffin. Artist’s recognition is provided with any use. Submitting artists will be added to the Griffin Museum’s monthly newsletter subscriber list. They may opt out using a link on each newsletter at any time. Any questions, please email iaritza@griffinmuseum.org

We always look forward to our members show. You make our everyday happen!
Thank you for being a part of the Griffin community.

Image accompanying post by Sylvia Stagg-Giuliano