surroundings : environment, ambience, location, setting, milieu, neighborhood, environs, home, place, scene, vicinity, site, locale, habitat, dwelling….

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“Gentry, self-consciously at first, then boldly retrieved the purple stuffed Barney effigy from its hiding place in the non-functioning 1950’s Frigidaire that served, chicly and uniquely, as extra storage; a mid-century armoire of sorts. He placed the grinning, polyester, pudgy tyrannosaurus rex on the chrome and rayon Eames inspired, with a nod to Le Corbusier, Ikea sofa — theatrically coughing; grinning—what his Publisher father would call, “that infuriating, insouciant millennial grin.”

Gentry’s Father, The Publisher, “the poor boy from Jersey” that indeed did work for everything he had, the welder through college, the high school sports reporter and pharmacy delivery driver through young parenthood and graduate school, the three time married, the real estate investor, the player of the stock market, the young hell-raiser, the experimenter with recreational drugs, the actually pretty ordinary fellow with above average intelligence couldn’t understand his son’s insouciance. It frightened him.

Gentry’s Dad didn’t want sea level rise to take his seaside condo, he didn’t want to have to divest of his investment in cattle ranching in Texas because of recurring drought – he really enjoyed playing cowboy a week out of every year. Gentry’s Dad hated selling his small piece of the New Orleans Saints – he didn’t trust their corporal future. Gentry’s Dad still mourned the loss of his favorite golf course in Puerto Rico. Gentry’s Dad just hadn’t learned the efficacy of the insouciant millennial grin yet, he would…” From “The Insouciant Millennial Smile” BY Franklin Cincinnatus

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JUROR | Kat Kiernan will be the juror for “surroundings”.  Kiernan was raised on the coast of Maine. Now a city-dweller, the influence of her rural upbringing can be seen in her autobiographical photographs rooted in the natural world. Often using herself as her subject, her work explores feelings of uncertainty. She has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the United States and been featured in publications including China Life, Lenscratch, and The Woven Tale Press. In 2012, she was named one of Artpil’s “30 under 30” women photographers to watch.

Kiernan lives in Brooklyn where she is the Editor-in-Chief of the photography magazine Don’t Take Pictures. She curated numerous exhibitions as the Director of Panopticon Gallery in Boston and owner of The Kiernan Gallery in Lexington, Virginia. In 2015, she received the Griffin Museum’s Rising Star Award for her contributions to the photographic community. Kiernan’s writings on photography have been published in journals and blogs including Art New England Online, Feature Shoot, and Big, Red, and Shiny, as well as in books, including Agnieszka Sosnowska: Myth of a Woman (The National Museum of Iceland, 2019), and The Artist as Culture Producer: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life (Intellect, 2017). She holds a BFA in photography from Lesley University College of Art and Design.

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Creativity is encouraged.

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