Homewood Collection
Introduction
The Inaugural Homewood Collection Competition and the introduction of the collection have been successfully completed. The beautiful prints are on exhibit in the Woodlands Gallery Hall. Below is an introduction and link to the digital Homewood Collection Gallery, a preview of the 2024 competition and exhibition, and a recap of the 2023 Homewood Collection Competition and Exhibition.
Homewood Collection Gallery
The Homewood Collection was envisioned in 2022 as a collection of fine curated photographic art obtained through an annual competition. The selected images would be presented as large gallery wrapped canvas prints and exhibited for one year at the Woodlands Gallery Hall on the Homewood at Frederick campus for the benefit of the residents, staff and visitors.
The printed photographic exhibition would be replaced after one year with the next year’s juried selection. However, the juried selected digital images from each year’s competition would be retained and displayed on the Homewood at Frederick website. This digital display is the Homewood Collection Gallery.
The 2023 Homewood Collection has been posted to the Homewood Collection Gallery and represents the first such installment to the gallery. You are invited to view the images of this inaugural collection by clicking on the link “Homewood Collection Gallery” below.
If you wish to purchase a print of any of the images you see in the gallery, you may email the photographer directly by clicking on the photographer's name. The digital images are the property of the originating photographer and the photographer has retained all rights. Homewood at Frederick and the Homewood Foundation, Inc. have no financial interest or responsibility for any purchasing arrangements made with the photographer.
Preview of the 2024 Homewood Collection Competition and Exhibition
While the 2024 Homewood Collection Competition and Exhibition are still months away we want to give the photographers who may wish to enter the competition a preview of what we will be looking for and give you time to get out and take that winning photograph.
We will be posting the call for entry in late January 2024 with the entry portal opening for entries around February 15. The concept used in 2024 will be the same as we used in 2023 with only a couple changes. Here are the changes that we envision at this time:
- Of course we will have a different theme. The theme for 2024 will be “A Moment in Time”. All still photographs capture a moment in time. So virtually any photographic genre will qualify for entry. But judging emphasis will be on those images that tell the viewer the photographer captured the subject, the environment, or the lighting, etc. at a unique time or place.
- We are considering a modification to the aspect ratio requirement.
- To achieve an original perspective each year, we intend to use a different judge for each competition.
We are looking forward to a large number of participating photographers in 2024 and hope to build on the success we had with our 2023 Homewood Collection Competition and Exhibition.
The 2023 Homewood Collection Competition and Exhibition
The Homewood Collection: Curated Photographic Art evolved over 18 months of planning as a proposed solution to a perceived need. Emerging from the COVID era, the Homewood at Frederick Executive Director determined that the busy corridor serving the Woodlands, the campus assisted living unit, was in urgent need of refreshing. Prior to COVID a volunteer auxiliary had solicited non-resident art for temporary display and sale in that corridor but had since ceased to function. Three independent living residents formed a team to accept the Executive Director’s challenge.
The project team investigated the situation and, since art by residents was already displayed in another campus building, decided to look for an alternative. In particular they searched for a way to display large images of exceptional art that assisted living residents could view easily as they traveled the corridor, but would appeal also to staff, visitors, and other residents who used that corridor. The team determined that regularly scheduled exhibitions of large-print, curated photographic art would be a desirable goal. They found inspiration in a project at Cortland Acres, a retirement village in Thomas WV, where annual competitions had become the source for corresponding exhibitions of large photographic prints to enhance their new rehab wing. After consulting with Cortland Acres staff, the Homewood team determined to adapt the idea for Homewood: select images obtained through open competition, print them for exhibition, and earn funding to repeat the process through sales.
It’s a simple concept, but months of planning ensued: first, to conceive a competition that would attract photographers from multiple states and be of mutual benefit to both the sponsoring institution and the participating photographers; second, to develop a proposal for startup funding, in particular to cover printing costs; and third, to consider the realistic alternatives for earning enough money from selling the prints to sustain annual repetitions of the competition/exhibition cycle. With a proposed project design and schedule in hand, the team consulted with the campus residents’ group and the administration about the potential for benefits to residents and possibilities for managing sales. Ultimately, they presented the proposal to the Homewood Foundation, with its mission of supporting the individual campuses of Homewood Retirement Centers, Inc., and were offered grant money from a Foundation donor that made it possible to proceed.
The team negotiated a project schedule and compiled competition guidelines to address technical and legal issues, which they posted on a Homewood Collection page within the Homewood at Frederick website, linking that page to Entry Thingy, an online platform that supports photography competitions.
By this point the team had engaged Martin Heavner as the competition judge. Mr. Heavner, a noted photographer with extensive experience judging competitions, is resident in Frederick County MD where he is a member and past president of the Frederick Camera Clique, and also resident in Allegany County MD where he is president of the Allegany Arts Council and Co-Chair of the Allegany National Photography Competition and Exhibition.
With the theme of “What I Saw on My Way,” the project launched February 15 with a call for entries through a press release, Facebook postings, and information sent directly to camera clubs and personal contacts in seven states including Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Texas. By the April 1 submission deadline, they received qualified entries from 47 photographers in five states totaling 161 images and submitted them to Mr. Heavner for adjudication and selection of 24 winning images, including a Best of Show. His final selection included 19 photographers. The team prepared letters to all entrants thanking them for participating and informing the winners of their selection, requesting them to submit their images in high-resolution for large-format printing on canvas.
The digital files were then sent to a recommended fine art canvas printing specialist, Canvas Giclée Printing in Carolina Beach, North Carolina. Photographers had been requested to submit their entries in 3:2 ratio, so all were printed as 24” x 36” gallery-wrapped frameless prints, except for the Best of Show, printed as 30” x 45”. The results were astonishing.
Next, introducing the 2023 Homewood Collection to the Homewood community and the Frederick community was an important step to the success of this inaugural effort. Working with the Homewood Marketing Department, the decision was made to create an upscale event, mixing Homewood residents, prospective residents, and the Frederick community through a combination of ads, invitations, and resident signups. Since Woodlands Gallery Hall, where the one-year exhibition would occur, was not appropriate for the expected attendance, the gala introduction took place in the Event Center in another building, where food, drink, and music could provide a festive background for viewing a stunning display of the 24 images on easels atop black-draped tables.
A short program welcomed guests, introduced special guests, and briefly explained the project. Mr. Heavner talked briefly about judging the competition and introduced the Best of Show photographer, Jennifer Eddins; together they unveiled her photograph, “Elakala Falls in Autumn,” and she received a $500 check. Guests learned about the generosity of the project’s startup funding and how they could participate in the project’s continuation through (1) charitable sponsorship of individual photographs for the one-year exhibition, and (2) purchase (for possession in July 2024) of photographs for personal use or for gifting to Homewood. Each guest was encouraged to use their ballot to cast a vote for People’s Choice, and near the end of the event Wayne Wolfersberger’s “A Walk in the Park” won him that award and a $200 check.
A generous number of sponsorships and sales transacted during the Gala have put the Homewood Collection in position to repeat the competition/exhibition cycle in 2024. A number of purchased prints have been donated back to Homewood for permanent exhibition elsewhere in the facility after the one-year exhibition in Woodlands Gallery Hall. Purchase and sponsorship transactions, as available, will continue to occur throughout the one-year exhibition.
The good financial news of the inaugural Homewood Collection Competition and Exhibition, while exhilarating, is a mere tactical success compared to how the Homewood community has embraced the project as a significant addition to the campus quality of life. In particular, reception of the photographs by viewers in Woodlands Gallery Hall even as they were being hung after the Gala was indeed reward for months of planning. They lingered, they looked closely, they shared stirred memories, they expressed awe. As one resident said while we hung the prints, “Thank you for sharing these with us.”
As a coda to this history of the 2023 Homewood Collection, it must be said: none of this would have been possible without the participation of generous photographers who entered the competition and permitted Homewood’s use of their work to print, exhibit, and sell. That in turn inspired the embrace of the community and their participation in sustaining it for another round. Our gratitude to them, indeed.