Now that all is said and done, Baltimore's art community is finally weighing in on the Baker Artist Awards selection process. In some ways, the Baker Awards really revolutionized the art competition as we know it, and we should all be thankful for the breath of fresh air. However, I hope to see some important refinements in next year's contest.

The Baker Awards' biggest issue is in the end, winning comes down to clever marketing and basic organizing skills. Many people had this figured out immediately: the key to winning is to spam friends and family with “vote for me” emails, follow up, and make sure they stay active on the site so they can earn the privilege of voting for you several times. The possibilities for promotion are endless: your Facebook account, blog, website, and office are all up for grabs. All this is fine, but at a certain point it detracts from the spirit of the contest.

Practical people will tell me that's just the way it is. At least those visitors were exposed to some other art, whether they like it or not. But I've never like d popularity contests. I combed through the site looking for artists I thought should win the top prize. In a way, we all had the opportunity to jury and curate our own show. My voting board represented the work I wanted to be seen, period. I never voted for friends just because they were in the running.

At the same time, I can definitely deal with a popularity contest. The world is full of them. My biggest criticism is that the secret jury apparently pulled from the top vote-getters, or at least took vote counts into serious consideration. That, and none of us know our own vote counts.

While the Baltimore's Choice winners were by and large very worthy recipients of the award, it's conceivable they just had the biggest email contact list (though I would hope not). With that in mind, didn't the jury judge more on popularity than merit of the work? Might some excellent portfolios never have even been seen by the jury?

If I send my images to a traditional competition, at least I can be relatively sure they receive a couple seconds in front of the jury. Given the public forum of the Baker Awards, maybe it was incumbent upon me to use the system to my best advantage. However, we don't even know who the jury was. Were they ever interested in evaluating the artistic merit of all nominations, or were they happy to pick favorites from the cream of the vote-getting crop?

Without these answers, it's very difficult for me to comprehend a large difference between the Baltimore's Choice and Mary Sawyers Baker awardees. Isn't this problematic, given the fact that the award jumps from $1,000 to $25,000?

All in all, I commend the organizations involved for putting the Baker Awards together and I'm excited to see the process again next year. However, it's becoming clear Baltimore's artists are aware that an online, public forum does not always beget a transparent process (remember this with your federal government, too, folks). There is absolutely no reason why all nominated artists should not be able to see vote counts and names of jurors. How else will we know if we ever stood a chance, or how we can improve our chances and our exposure next year?

Returning to Monday's post for a moment, it isn't entirely incumbent upon us artists to be professionals. After all, what would happen if everyone exhibited top-notch professionalism in the business world?

Just as artists compete for top opportunities, the organizations providing those opportunities must compete for the top artists. They are responsible for selecting individuals who are producing well-considered work and presenting it well.

To that end, the big challenge for the two groups I've been discussing of late is sifting through the massive amount of images submitted. In the case of JPG Magazine, I have been gradually less impressed as the pool of contributors has increased. The top prize will inform my final verdict on the Baker Artist Awards. A strong, well-rounded portfolio in the number-one slot will keep me – and many other participants, I'm sure – engaged for years to come because we'll know the selection process is credible and we will continue to submit our work and challenge ourselves as creative people.

I feel very hopeful about the Baker Awards, more so than about JPG at this point. In some way, I feel like the Baker Awards are an American Idol for Baltimore artists. This sounds silly and I hope it doesn't offend anyone, but I can't think of another analogy that works so well. Regardless of whether I enjoy the show (I do, okay?), I can't dispute the fact that the model works very, very well. Beginning with a wide base of great talent, great disillusionment, and tons of hope and energy, a pool of contestants battle it out in the public eye. This, the audition, is the Baker site. In both cases, the end goal is not just to win a lot of money by snagging first prize – which always goes to a very talented individual – but to survive the process well enough and long enough to catch the attention of an industry professional. While very few of us will actually win something, we're hoping a curator or two will notice our work in the process.

So, unlike JPG, which has undergone a hefty amount of criticism during its crisis, I think the Baker Foundation and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance have it just right and are putting Baltimore at the forefront of a new, very exciting movement in the art/curating world. They are taking a proven model that folks just love and translating it to fine arts, which is something I am happy – and privileged – to support.

I hopped on the Baker Artist Awards site again last night to take a look around. Many new artists have joined over the past month, and currently only 18 days remain for voting. The whole JPG Magazine debacle has kept me thinking about user-generated content and the widening pool of artists, especially digital artists and photographers.

While I love the Baker Awards overall, I noticed a lot of entries last night with no artist statement. I include in this category folks who wrote along the lines of “through my paintings I hope to capture everyday moments and the relationships between people and the space they inhabit.” Just as it disturbs me when I receive woefully inadequate resumes at the office, I am troubled when I see up-and-coming artists disregard one of the most basic expressions of professionalism in their craft.

The artist statement provides conceptual backing for a body of work. Ideally, the content and subject are articulated clearly to give the reader an accurate impression of the art even without actually seeing it. The artist statement also provides a forum to discuss metaphors, themes, and/or issues present in the work.

While visual art is about creativity and sometimes breaking the rules, galleries and juried competitions always ask for an artist statement. If there isn't enough content to craft an effective statement, the work just isn't ready for the professional arena. In an ever-expanding art world, these details gain greater importance, not less. Faced with a glut of images, jurors have an obligation to single out and reward artists whose work is well-considered and well-presented. Truly good art is a marriage of technical skill and great ideas, and anyone who has defended their images through a long critique knows it's about much more than being able to tack pretty pictures up on a wall.

It's a competitive world out there, and Baltimore's artists need to recognize the amount of foundation money at stake here. In a month or so, one of us will be awarded a $20,000 prize. With 496 entries so far, work that seems conceptually incomplete will be easy to weed out, and I foresee the winning art being both thought-provoking and well-executed.

Do you agree? What hallmarks of professionalism and care do you look for in visual art? Please add your thoughts in the comments.

The Baker Artist Awards public launch press conference is online at last!  I attended the online press conference, which marked the November 24 public launch of the Baker Awards, along with ten other Baltimore artists and representatives from the William G. Baker Fund, Fastspot, and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.  As resistant as I can be to showing/seeing/hearing myself on tape, here it is for your enjoyment:



Many thanks to GBCA Executive Director Nancy Harrigan for inviting me to participate in the press conference, and to the folks at Fastspot for making a great site (and providing an embed link!).