trees: forest, sapling, oak, timber, woods, leaves, seedling, topiary, thicket, park, trunk, branches, family, grove, pine, foliage….

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“On November 23^rd, 1967, Delbert Spinner looked at his wife over the morning breakfast table. The yellow of his eggs congealing on his cold plate.

“I’m not going to do it,” he said.

“Not going to do what?” asked his wife.

“Buy a Christmas tree. I’m a carpenter, I’m gonna build one.”

“You’re going to build one.”

“Yep, tired of spending the money. I have a shed full of scrap lumber. Some of it the same species as Christmas trees. Fir, pine, even smells like a Christmas tree.”

“Really, that’s ridiculous. How are you going to create the branches, the needles?”

“Don’t know yet….”

The Spinner Christmas Tree Company took up the front half of a twenty-thousand square foot building. The neighbors were upset when it moved into the neighborhood with all the racket made by the various milling machines. However, they grew fond of the operation over time. The aroma of Christmas wafting through the neighborhood all year. They found themselves throwing parties and giving gifts all year round. Two new local bakeries opened. The entire Smith family had to buy new undergarments, swimming suits, and trousers.

Margaret Spinner, the youngest child of the Spinner’s, is credited with the success of the company. Delbert struggled for two holiday seasons with how to create the branches and needles. Margaret, then seven years old, solved the problem. It involved paper mache, glue, flour, alkyd house paint, wire, an Easy-Bake Oven, and a proprietary ingredient.

Margaret grew up to be a successful artist and environmental activist. She is rumored to have smoked pot with Willie Nelson on the roof of the White House. She lives in a treehouse, in an undisclosed location, built of scraps from The Spinner Christmas Tree Company. She never married….” From “Trees: Tales of Memory and Invention” By Franklin Cincinnatus

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JUROR |Geoffrey Koslov will be the juror for “trees”. Geoffrey has a life long involvement in photography as lecturer, reviewer, photographer and gallerist. He is the former owner of Koslov Larsen Gallery, an AiPAD member fine art gallery that dealt in contemporary photography-based art. He had served for many years on the Photography Acquisitions Subcommittee for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), and the Board of Directors for the Houston Center for Photography (HCP). He was formerly a member of HCP’s Exhibitions Committee, a former co-chair of its Print Auction and previously served as co-chair of the Art Circle at Holocaust Museum Houston. Geoffrey has been involved across the US and overseas in reviewing the work of artists in various venues and in consultations with collectors. He has participated with Fotofest, the Center for Fine Art Photography (CFAP), The Rencontres d’Arles (France), the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC), The Medium Festival of Photography, PhotoLucida, Critical Mass, PhotoVisa (Russia), A Smith Gallery, and others. Geoffrey has more than 50 years of business experience, rooted in 36 years as a partner with Ernst & Young, which he brings to the arts. With this experience, he helps photographers with project development, talking and writing about their work, as well as consulting and advising artists on strategy and approaches to the art market. He has worked with collectors, art advisors and museums searching for the best of contemporary photography-based art. Geoffrey and his wife live in Houston, Texas.

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SUBMISSION | Guidelines: Digital images should be 1800 pixels on the longest side saved in JPEG format at 72 ppi. Each image should be labeled with consecutive numbers followed by your name, i.e. 1FirstName_LastName.jpg. The number should correspond with the number on the application form.  Please do not watermark your images.  If you need help sizing your images, please follow this link https://convert.town/image-dpi

SUBMISSION | Online:  Fill out our online application to apply, send images, and make payment with Paypal. You will receive an email confirmation upon receiving the submission and payment. You can also fill and submit the online application, print out your confirmation email, and mail it with a check for your fees to the address below.  Please note that gallery emails often end up in spam folders.  Please check your spam if you did not receive a confirmation email.

SUBMISSION | Entry Fee: $40 for the first 5 images, $5 per each additional image.  There is no limit to the number of images you may submit. Submission fees are not refundable.

SUBMISSION | Entry Reviews:  Photographers submitting 13 or more images are entitled to receive a complimentary review by the gallery directors. Photographers that enter less than 13 images, can receive a review for an additional $20. All reviews will be 30 minutes and typically scheduled a week after the exhibition results are announced.

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ELIGIBILITY | The competition is open to all photographers both professional and amateur working in all photographic mediums and styles. International entries are welcomed. Work that has been previously exhibited in an A Smith Gallery competition is not eligible.  We prefer not to accept images created with Artificial Intelligence at the present time due to the lack of clarity concerning copyright issues and the ongoing litigation associated with them.

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ONLINE EXHIBITION and CATALOGUE | Jurors will be selecting up to 47 images in total. All artist included in the final selection of images will receive the following:

1. The gallery will be featuring each of selected images on both Facebook and Instagram over the span of the exhibition.

2. Gallery Directors will be hosting a GalleryTalk and will discuss all selected images.  The GalleryTalk will be posted in the blog section of the website.

3.  The gallery online store will include all selected images listed for sale.

4. An exhibition catalogue including all selected images will be published and available for purchase.

5. The online exhibition as well as the GalleryTalk will be permanently archived after the end of the exhibition period.

“THE 27” HARDBOUND EXHIBITION BOOK | 27 images from the total selected images will be selected for “The 27”, a hardbound fine art book of the exhibition.  “The 27” will be available for purchase. Both the Juror and Director Award recipients will receive the hardbound exhibition book.

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NOTIFICATIONS | All photographers who have submitted an entry will receive an email notification of the juror’s selection as well as confirmation of your entry being received.  Confirmation emails are sent directly from the gallery directors and may take a few hours to be sent.  Please note that gallery emails often end up in spam folders.  Please check your spam if you did not receive a confirmation email.  If concerned, please email amanda@asmithgallery.com.

AWARDS | The awards are as follows:

Jurors Award – a online solo exhibition, “The 27” exhibition book and feature story on the gallery blog
Directors Award – “The 27” exhibition book and a feature story on the gallery blog
Visitors Award (most Instagram likes) – $100

The solo exhibition awarded as the Juror and Director Awards will be scheduled at a mutually agreed time for the duration of a month.

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JURYING PROCESS | Our jurying process is blind, meaning the jurors do not see your name on the images you have submitted. All images submitted are renamed and assigned an entry/image number. The juror sees each entry together as a group in the order the images were submitted.

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SALES | The gallery has an online store and will include all images from the exhibition. The gallery will retain 30% of the sales price.  When a print sells, there are two options.  First, the artist may ship a signed print directly to the buyer.  Or the gallery will print the image for the artist.  Please see Printing Services for details.

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USE RIGHTS | Photographers retain full rights to their own images. The gallery will use the photographer’s images for publicity purposes as well as on line gallery, online store, exhibition catalogue and “The 27” exhibition book.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION | amanda@asmithgallery.com