Wednesday, July 30, 2025

7 Best Doctors Photography Contest

AS A PART OF dnj Gallery's ART AND MED PROGRAM:





Attention Photographers:  
Please submit a photograph(s) of one of the “7 Best Doctors”--  your interpretation of any one of our highlighted seven doctors (please see image above).

dnj Gallery will have a reception of the most effective of the entries (7 photographs), at the gallery, on Saturday evening, October 18, from 6-8pm. These photographs will be installed in our installation room, to coincide with our ‘Art and Med’ program. www.dnjgallery.net 
THE CHOSEN PHOTOGRAPH FOR EACH CATEGORY (7 PHOTOGRAPHS) WILL BE INSTALLED.

These photographs will then be installed through the end of November:  October 18th-November 29th.

Only 2-D work is eligible.  Experimental and mixed techniques are welcome. Only two images will be accepted from any one artist.

Deadline:  September 28th, 2025

To enter:  send your jpeg(s) to office@dnjgallery.net with the title, “7 BEST DOCTORS” as the subject line.  Please include your name and contact information in the email. Winners will be notified within the next week.

Jurors:
Pamela Schoenberg— owner/director of dnj Gallery AND Ted Meyer-- co-curator of the 'Art and Med' program

Pamela Schoenberg, the owner and director of dnj Gallery, has been active in the art world for over 30 years. After receiving her BFA in both History and Photography from Washington University in St. Louis, she then graduated with her MFA in Studio Art/Photography from Mills College in Oakland, California. She studied with artists Joe Deal and Catherine Wagner consecutively. Schoenberg pursued and exhibited her photography for more than fifteen years before opening dnj Gallery. After graduate school, she lived in Jerusalem and was commissioned to photograph the immigration and acculturation of the Ethiopian Jews. In 1998, she received the "Artist-In-The-Community" grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. Schoenberg has also been involved with many Los Angeles institutions including Barnsdall Municipal Art Gallery where she worked for the education department and developed numerous elementary school programs. During this time, she published several essays for the Museum Education of Southern California (MESC) organization. Then at the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, she assisted in organizing exhibitions, educational workshops and grant writing. She has also worked in museum education and taught workshops at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Skirball Cultural Center and The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. 

On July 2, 2023, Schoenberg received her certification as a Functional Health Coach. From October 2021 - October 2022, she attended the Kresser Institute to complete the Adapt Health Coach Training Program. In April 2024, the 'Art and Med' program began at dnj Gallery.


Ted Meyer is a nationally recognized artist, curator and patient advocate who helps patients, students and medical professionals see the positive in the worst life can offer. Ted’s decades long project “Scarred for Life: Mono- prints of Human Scars” chronicles the trauma and courage of people who have lived through accidents and health crises.

Ted seeks to improve patient/physician communications and speaks about living as an artist with illness. Telling stories about his own art and the stories behind his scar art collection, he offers insight into living with pain, illness, and disfigurement. Ted has been featured on NPR and in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and USA Today. His work has been displayed internationally in museums, hospitals, and galleries. As the Artist in Residence at USC Keck School of Medicine, Ted curates exhibitions of artwork by patients whose subject matter coincides with medical school curriculum. Ted has curated shows by artists challenged by MS, cancer, germ phobias, back pain, and other diseases. He is a Visiting Scholar at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, is a graduate of the Aspen Leadership Seminars, was the 2017 Sterling Visiting Professorship at Stanford University and has been TEDMED mainstage speaker.

Ted’s rare niche mixes art, medicine, and stories of healing and survival, drawing from his experience as a lifelong patient of Gaucher Disease (an enzyme deficiency that affects bones and joints). Ted spent much of his childhood in severe pain. His work is influenced by his many hospital stays where he began mixing art and medical supplies. (How can you make something out of I.V. tubes, bandages and pipe cleaners?) Contorted, graphic skeletal images appear in his early paintings reflecting his belief that he would not reach his 30th birthday. He now considers himself normal and healthy; outliving friends, family, and early expectations.

New drug treatments and joint replacements have improved Ted’s life and this in turn has changed his artistic direction, shifting from “Ted-centric” images to those that highlight other people’s health problems. His “Scarred for Life” series chronicles events that suddenly changed people’s lives. During an expansive narrated visual presentation, audiences come to understand how a lifetime of chronic illness impacts an artist’s work. Ted’s curation turns devastating illnesses into a source of artistic expression, giving voice to people around the world living with rare diseases and disfigurement.

Ted’s paintings have been shown around the world, from Europe, to Asia, and throughout the United States. With subject matter ranging from introspective, to down-right humorous, his narrative always looks at human interactions.

Ted is a recent recipient of both a California Creative Core grant and

Ted is also a writer, photographer and illustrator. He has written and illustrated several books. “Shrink Yourself: The Complete do-it-Yourself Book of Freudian Psychoanalysis,” “The Butt Hello - And Other Reasons My Cats Drive Me Crazy,” “Cats Around the World,” “Good Things You Can Learn from A Bad Relationship,” “Scarred for Life,” and “Woman

CAC Individual Artist

Fellowship, and the National Association of Practice’s 2024 Patient Advocacy Award winner.

Napping with Animals.” His award-winning documentary, “King of Dinoland,” follows outsider artist Abe DeLacerda.

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