Houck Medford Papers
Houck Medford is from Waynesville, North Carolina, and is a third-generation dentist, conservationist, and photographer. This collection contains documentary artworks created by Houck Medford between 2003 and 2024, including prints of analog and born-digital photographs, digital images, and handbound artists' books; digital images are available online in Special Collections and Archives' Digital Collections.
Biographical and Historical Note
Houck Medford is from Waynesville, N.C., and is a third-generation dentist, conservationist, and photographer. He attended Wake Forest University (1972), received a doctorate of Dental Surgery from Emory University (1976), and subsequently completed his residency at Charlotte Memorial Hospital, now Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center. Returning to Winston-Salem, in 1977 Medford began serving as a faculty member in the Department of Dentistry under chair Dr. Charles Jerge at Bowman Gray School of Medicine and eventually led a clinical internship program in implant dentistry. In 1989, Medford left Bowman Gray to establish his private practice in a converted garage located on Reynolda Road between Buena Vista and Robinhood Roads.
During the 1990s, Medford shifted his focus away from dentistry toward conservation and philanthropy. In 1997, Medford created the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, leaving the organization in 2010 as CEO Emeritus and Founder. Medford's philanthropic reach also includes Wake Forest University's Z. Smith Reynolds (ZSR) Library, as well as the Town of Waynesville and Haywood County, N.C. In 2012, Medford and his sister, Philan Medford, began the Mib and Phil Medford Endowment in honor of their parents.
Throughout his tenure at the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, Medford developed interests in photography, filmmaking, and book arts as a way to document his viewpoint of the regional culture and natural surroundings of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In a 2023 interview with senior Tsing Liu, then the Medford Curatorial Associate at ZSR, Medford traces his understanding of and interest in documenting agricultural lifestyles to a high school summer job measuring tobacco allotments in Haywood County for the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, where he also honed his ability to relate to people, a skill which served him from dentist to conservationist to documentary artist.
In 2015, Medford earned a certificate through the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies program. He has pursued bookmaking through coursework at Penland School of Craft and is an active member of Asheville Printmakers. Medford has exhibited his photographic work throughout western N.C., including shows at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University (2015) and the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum (2018). In 2018, Medford's photograph titled I Am in Charge Here won Second Place and People's Choice in SlowExposures, a juried exhibition celebrating photography of the rural South. In 2022, Medford Curatorial Associate Liu curated an exhibit at the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center titled What Happened? Houck Medford's Photographic Witness for Floyd County, Virginia, centered around Medford's 2014 series of platinotypes depicting farmhouses amid the Blue Ridge Mountain landscape. These works are also featured in Liu's 2022 virtual exhibit, The Presence of Absence: Photography Collections from Wake Forest University, as well as a forthcoming catalog whose contributors include Gene Hyde, Head of Special Collections at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Kathy "KB" Medford frequently appears in Houck's work as both subject and collaborator. KB's early career as a kayak instructor and river guide from the early 1970s to 1993 is featured in the 2020 exhibit Terra Ludis: Play Ground at the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum. In 1993, KB moved to Winston-Salem and married Houck, where she later earned her physician's assistant degree from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. KB frequently supports her husband's artistic endeavors through providing logistical oversight on complex filmmaking and oral history projects. In his artist's statement, Houck writes that KB has become a "partner and co-participant in my craft of storytelling." She has conducted multiple oral history interviews, including a collaboration with Linda Gregory Pope culminating in the book Linda Gregory Pope's Tucker's Grove (2023). Other collaborators include musicians, storytellers, cider-brewers, and writers, such as Sherry Lovett of the Asheville Storytelling Circle with Saving the Good Stuff (2021) and former North Carolina Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti with Rising Meadow (2021), as well as the many people who are depicted as documentary subjects in Medford's work.
Rooted in his desire "to be a truthful teller of the stories of others," Medford's artistic vision exists in dialogue with a documentary tradition forged by fellow North Carolina photographer, businessman, and conservationist, Hugh Morton (1921–2006). In addition to offering advice during the formative years of the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, Morton also encouraged Medford to pursue photography as a storytelling medium. Medford reflects in his artist's statement that "photography helps me build community by giving those around me a different lens for understanding others and seeing the events around them. It also becomes a tool for introduction to individuals who would become good friends."
Houck and KB Medford are currently based in Blowing Rock, N.C.
Sources:
- Conn, Robert. "121 Years of Tradition." Winston-Salem Magazine (June/July 1991): 10-11, 34, 38. Accessed July 2024. Dorothy Carpenter Medical Archives, Coy C. Carpenter Library, Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
- Liu, Tsing. Interview with Houck Medford. 2023. Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.
- Liu, Tsing. The Presence of Absence: Photography Collections from Wake Forest University. Wake the Arts. Wake Forest University. December 11, 2022. Accessed May 2024.
- Medford, Houck. Biography, and Artist's Statement. Accessed May 2024.
Collection Overview
This collection contains artworks created by Houck Medford between 2003 and 2024, including prints of analog and born-digital photographs, digital images and videos, handbound artists' books, and copies of self-published booklets. Photographic materials include born-digital images, 35-millimeter and platinotype negatives, 4 x 6-inch prints from 35-millimeter negatives, platinotypes (also called palladium prints), and inkjet prints. Most inkjet prints are printed on 8.5 x 11-inch paper with a blend of monochromatic inks using a method known as Piezography. Materials related to handmade books include binder's notes; mock-ups; annotated working copies of artists' books; and bookbinding supplies, including scraps of tissue paper, adhesives, cloth, thread, book boards, and metal wire. Digital materials are available online in Special Collections and Archives' Digital Collections.
Most born-digital photographs in this collection include three versions: a "raw" file, analogous to a photographic negative; a "print" file used to create inkjet prints; and the final print inscribed with both "print" and "raw" filenames. Users of this collection can follow Medford's creative process based upon the formats they decide to access.
Most "print" files have been made available online; photographs that depict children have been omitted. A selection of "raw" files have been made available online when a print corollary does not exist and in the case of composite images stitched together from multiple sources. Individuals are identified where possible.
Medford's work often includes multiple versions and format iterations of a single documentary project, ranging from photographic materials, to documentary films, to books. The variety of materials mirrors Medford's approach to storytelling, in which one instance of a story is treated with a sense of finality and possible inspiration for the next.
The strength of this collection is Medford's personal observations and stories woven throughout his works, which can be found within embedded metadata of digital photographs, explanatory captions, bookbinding notes, and artist's statements. Users of this collection can trace Medford's experiences helping tell the story of a community of African Methodist Episcopal Church congregants at Tucker's Grove Camp Meeting Ground in Lincoln County, N.C., as well as his coverage of an array of small organic farms operated by predominantly white families throughout the Blue Ridge Mountain region; meditations on the abundance of rhododendrons and concurrent loss of hemlock forests in western N.C.; and remembrances of personal encounters while riding his Harley Low Rider along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
See "Related Archival Materials" for a complete list of books related to the Houck Medford Papers available in Z. Smith Reynolds Library's catalog.
Collection Arrangement
This collection is arranged thematically into four series: Series 1. Agriculture and farming project materials, Series 2. Arts and culture project materials, Series 3. Nature and the built environment project materials, and Series 4. Religion project materials. Items are arranged alphabetically by titles of projects completed by Medford, followed by corresponding geographical location.
Series 1. Agriculture and farming contains materials related to Medford's documentation of farming life experienced by predominantly white families.
Cotton Tale documents Medford's agricultural roots near Four Holes Swamp, S.C., where members of his mother's family have overseen a cotton farm for generations. Materials include a DVD copy and an .mp4 video file of the 2015 documentary film.
Rising Meadow is a collaboration with poet Joseph Bathanti and documents the lives of Ann and Ron Fay, who operate one of the last small-scale working sheep farms in the Southeast in Liberty, N.C. Materials include prints, digital images, a blank book, and an annotated working copy of Rising Meadow published in 2021 by Horse and Buggy Press.
The remainder of Series 1 encompasses The Organic Farmer: Heart and Hands, published in four volumes. In Medford's words, this project "documents the life values of organic farmers and how their hands are used in the cultivation of their crops to produce a livelihood" and features a selection of small farms throughout the Blue Ridge Mountain region located in North Carolina and Georgia. Materials related to The Organic Farmer include prints and digital images.
Series 2. Arts and culture contains materials related to Medford's celebration of artistic practices and community traditions.
Like No Place I Have Ever Seen documents an annual Christmas parade held in Cameron, S.C., and includes bookbinding materials for the 2021 artist's book.
Saving the Good Stuff and Saviors of the Good Stuff in their Own Voices combine Medford's photographic portraiture with collaborator Sherry Lovett's storytelling to document a community of musicians at The Orchard at Altapass in Spruce Pine, N.C. Materials include a copy of the 2021 booklet Saving the Good Stuff, as well as two black-and-white prints dated 2014 and undated gallery ephemera.
Series 3. Nature and the built environment contains materials related to Medford's observations of natural phenomena and human impacts on the environment of the Blue Ridge Mountain region.
Blue Ridge Parkway Singles contains the earliest works of this collection and covers Medford's transition from analog to digital photography. Materials include inkjet and analog prints, 35-millimeter negatives, and digital images. Most images date from 2003 to 2008; however, while preparing digital images for donation to ZSR in summer 2024, Medford authored extensive captions, which he embedded in the metadata of each image. A selection of prints includes printed versions of these stories.
Lake Bed depicts the exposed bed of Salem Lake, N.C., photographed during a draining event. Materials include prints, digital images, a handbound mock-up for the 2019 artist's book, and bookbinding materials.
RHODY documents the proliferation of rhododendrons in western N.C. amid the loss of hemlock forests to the hemlock woolly adelgid. Materials include prints; digital images; a copy of the 2021 booklet; and a handbound mock-up, bookbinding materials, and binder's notes for the 2021 artist's book.
What Happened? features abandoned farmhouses amid the sparsely populated landscape of Floyd County, Va. Materials include digital images, platinotype negatives, and platinotypes.
Series 4. Religion encompasses Medford's ongoing projects centered around a community of six predominantly Black African Methodist Episcopal churches who meet annually at Tucker's Grove Camp Meeting Ground in Lincoln County, N.C.
Linda Gregory Pope's Tucker's Grove documents Linda Gregory Pope's remembrances of Tucker's Grove as told to KB and tells the story of Robert Fin "Finny" Link (1885-1982), who served as a photographer at the camp for several decades. Scans of Pope's family albums are juxtaposed with images reproduced from Medford's documentary work. Pope's remembrances are transcribed from an oral history conducted by KB Medford in March 2023. Materials include a copy of the 2023 booklet.
Paying it Forward covers a broad picture of Tucker's Grove from an outsider's perspective using information gathered from interviews with congregants, Medford's documentary photography, and archival research conducted by Medford. Portraits of individual church congregants and duplications of historical materials are featured throughout, while most contextual writing is in Medford's voice. Materials include prints, digital images, and a copy of the 2022 booklet.
Controlled Access Headings
Corporate Names
Geographic Names
Blowing Rock (N.C.) Blue Ridge Mountains Blue Ridge Parkway (N.C. and Va.) Floyd County (Va.) Liberty (Randolph County, N.C.) Lincoln County (N.C.) Lincoln County (N.C.) -- Church history -- Sources Winston-Salem (N.C.) replace
Occupations
Photographers
Personal Names
Subjects
Administrative Information
- Publication Information
- Processed by Kayla Cavenaugh in May-August 2024.
- Revision Description
- Revised by Kate Trathen, new materials added, 2026 March
- Access Restrictions
- Collection is open for use.
- Copyright Notice
- The nature of the WFU Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. The Archives and Special Collections of ZSR Library claims only physical ownership of most materials. The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to the U.S. Copyright Law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.
- Preferred Citation
- Houck Medford Papers (MS932), Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.