Call Description

Texas Photographic Society is honored to announce the call for entries for Backyard a themed, juried exhibition of places shaped by use, memory, and proximity, which will be juried by Judy Tedford Deaton, Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the Grace Museum in Abilene, TX.

Backyard will be exhibited at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Abilene, Texas. Artists working in all media are encouraged to submit work that examines the backyard as a constructed environment — shaped by human intention and natural forces — or as a psychological or symbolic space informed by memory and experience. The exhibition welcomes literal, abstract, documentary, and experimental approaches. Backyard will open at the Center for Contemporary Art in Abilene, Texas, on February 13th, 2026 and will continue through March 28th, 2026. A closing reception with the juror will be on March 28, 2026, time TBA.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Jan 6th, 2026 - Call for Entries opens
Jan 26th, 2026 - Deadline for Entry (11:59 p.m. Central Time)
Jan 30th, 2026 - Selections Announced
Feb 10th, 2026 - Work Due at the Center for Contemporary Arts
Feb 13th, 2026 - Exhibition Opening
March 28th, 2026 - Exhibition Closes / Closing Reception
March 29th, 2026 - Work is Shipped Back

AWARDS

First Place = $400

Second Place = $250

Third Place = $150
Up to 5 Honorable Mentions may be awarded

AWARDS

First Place = $400

Second Place = $250

Third Place = $150
Up to 5 Honorable Mentions may be awarded

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

The backyard is a familiar yet complex space — a place shaped by use, memory, and proximity. It can be a site of play, labor, retreat, control, or neglect. Often considered ordinary, the backyard quietly reflects how we relate to land, to home, and to one another.

This exhibition invites artists to interpret the concept of backyard broadly. Submissions may engage with backyards as physical spaces or as metaphors: sites of personal history, social boundaries, ecological systems, cultural identity, or contested ground. From cultivated lawns and improvised gardens to overlooked edges and informal structures, the backyard offers a lens through which to explore questions of ownership, care, belonging, and transformation.

Artists working in all photographic media are encouraged to submit work that examines the backyard as a constructed environment — shaped by human intention and natural forces — or as a psychological or symbolic space informed by memory and experience. The exhibition welcomes literal, abstract, documentary, and experimental approaches.

By focusing attention on spaces often taken for granted, this exhibition seeks to reveal the depth and complexity embedded in what lies just beyond the back door. The backyard, modest in scale yet rich in implication, becomes a starting point for broader conversations about place, identity, and our relationship to the environments we inhabit.

ABOUT THE JUROR

Judy Tedford Deaton, Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections, has been curating exhibitions and overseeing the art and history collections at The Grace Museum since 2006. She is responsible for concept development, installation and interpretation of twelve art exhibitions annually. Before joining The Grace staff, Deaton was an associate professor of art history and gallery director at McMurry University (1995-2006). She earned a BA from the University of Texas Austin and an MFA in art history from Southern Methodist University where she was a recipient of the SMU Meadows Artistic Scholarship Graduate Award in Art History.

She is an author, art historian, frequent guest speaker, art consultant, art juror and panelist at museums and conferences including the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), Texas Association of Museums (TAM), Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas (CADD), Mountain Plains Museum Association (MPMA), and the Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art (CASETA). Deaton is currently a member for the CASETA board of directors and served on the 2015 Arts Create Grant Panel for the Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA) and was recently featured in the National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities publication article on the exhibition Spanish Texas, Legend & Legacy curated in 2016. She is also the recipient of CASETA awards for outstanding publications and exhibitions in 2014, 2015 and 2016 and the MPMA 2009 award for art exhibition publications. Monographs and solo exhibitions on Seymour Fogel, Loren Mozley, Kelly Fearing, Janet Turner and Michael Frary are among recent early Texas art projects.

Application Requirements

ENTRY FEE and TPS MEMBERSHIP

All entries are processed through the CaFE submission site. The entry fee for current TPS Members is $30 for 5 images, plus $5 for each additional image. The Non-Member entry fee is $40 for 5 images, plus $5 for each additional image. You do not have to be a member of TPS to enter. However, if you enter the competition and join TPS or renew as a member at the same time, you can pay the reduced current TPS Member entry fee of $35.

You may enter up to 12 images.

TPS Member Benefits include member feature opportunities via our Members' Gallery, Member Spotlight, Blog, Members' News, Members' Instagram Takeover, social media accounts and E-Zine, discounted entry fees to most TPS competitions, and discounts to programs and services offered through our partnerships.

If you are not sure of your TPS member status, please contact TPS at cpireland@gmail.com. All entry and membership fees are non-refundable.

Eligibility Criteria

ELIGIBILITY

Backyard is open to artists internationally, of all levels, who are at least 18 years old at time of entry. Works exhibited previously in a TPS show are not eligible. Current members of the TPS Board of Directors are permitted to enter but are not eligible for awards.