Happy Sunday!  The blog has been expanding throughout the interwebs lately, so a short update is in order.  Did you know how many places you can catch up with Words + Images?

• Befriend the Words + Images Facebook page!  Leave a note on the wall, start a discussion, contribute some ideas, or just stick a new fan page in your profile.
• Follow the micro blog on Twitter.
• Get email updates for info on changes to the site and/or invites to events I'm participating in (currently the emails are very sporadic/light volume).
• As always, you can subscribe to the RSS feed to have blog content delivered to your virtual doorstep (still wondering what this RSS thing is all about?  Here's a short explanation.).
  

Thanks for reading!

A few days ago I took advantage of a buy one get one promotion and ordered subscriptions to JPG Magazine for myself and a friend.  Sadly, this morning I received the following email announcing JPG is going under after two years of awesome work in the photo community.  Apparently the outpouring of support that followed the JPG Magazine Says Goodbye email offers a glimmer of hope for the bi-monthly mag to live on, but we'll see.  If they're planning on shutting down the website on January 5, something big will have to happen very quickly.  What do you think will become of the JPG community?

Today is a particularly sad day for all of us at JPG and 8020 Media.

We've spent the last few months trying to make the business behind JPG sustain itself, and we've reached the end of the line. We all deeply believe in everything JPG represents, but we just weren't able to raise the money needed to keep JPG alive in these extraordinary economic times. We sought out buyers, spoke with numerous potential investors, and pitched several last-ditch creative efforts, all without success. As a result, jpgmag.com will shut down on Monday, January 5, 2009.

The one thing we've been the most proud of: your amazing talent. We feel honored and humbled to have been able to share jpgmag.com with such a dynamic, warm, and wonderful community of nearly 200,000 photographers. The photography on the website and in the magazine was adored by many, leaving no doubt that this community created work of the highest caliber. The kindness, generosity, and support shared among members made it a community in the truest sense of the word, and one that we have loved being a part of for these past two years.

We wish we could have found a way to leave the site running for the benefit of the amazing folks who have made JPG what it is, and we have spent sleepless nights trying to figure something out, all to no avail. Some things you may want to do before the site closes:

- Download the PDFs of back issues, outtakes, and photo challenge selections. We'll always have the memories!  www.jpgmag.com/downloads/archives.html
- Make note of your favorite photographers. You may want to flip through your favorites list and jot down names and URLs of some of the people you'd like to stay in touch with. You may even want to cut and paste your contacts page into a personal record.
- Catch up with your fellow members. Our roots are in this humble flickr forum and we recommend going back to find fellow members, discuss the situation, or participate in another great photo community. www.flickr.com/groups/jpgmag/
- Keep in touch. This has always been much more than just a job to each of us, and we'll miss you guys! We'll be checking the account jpgletters@gmail.com in our free time going forward. We can't promise to reply to every email (since we'll be busy tuning up our resumes) but we'd love to hear from you.
- Stay posted. Although the magazine is ceasing publication, we'll be updating you on what's happening with your subscription early next week.

We're soggy-eyed messes, but it is what it is. At that, JPGers, we bid you goodbye, and good luck in 2009 and the future.

Laura Brunow Miner
Editor in Chief

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!).

I'm happy to report, Words + Images seems to be fully transitioned to its new home.  Naturally there were a few glitches, so if you discover one I don't know about, please let me know!

This weekend I will be in the process of moving Words + Images to a new hosting company.  Ideally the whole thing should go off without a hitch, but we'll see.

I fully intend to have the move completed by Monday night, when I usually upload the weekly post.  Until then, beware of stormy seas!

I'm currently out of town at a conference, so the weekly post may be somewhat delayed due to scarcity of free internet access at our fancy hotel.  If nothing else, I'll upload this week's post when I return home at the end of the week.

Crafts were the first art form I experienced growing up: my mom is a flea market and craft fair addict and I more often than not tagged along with her, then and now.  Mom also makes jewelry (beautiful earrings, mostly) and gave me a knack for piecing together little projects at the dining room table after work.  My craftiness has migrated to a job at my uncle's cabinetry shop in middle school, zines in high school, home-built stretchers and frames for my paintings in college, and a love for wintertime knitting and crochet passed down from my grandmother and great-grandmother.

Baltimore has a fun, active, and diverse indie craft scene.  One of my coworkers, Christy Zuccarini, recently landed a gig with the Baltimore Sun writing the Baltimore By Hand blog.  So far it has been extremely aesthetically pleasing in addition to being a great read.  Plus, knowing another Baltimorean who blogs about art makes me feel part of a scene -- you should check out Christy's blog at http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/crafts/.

When I originally redesigned the site and began Words + Images, I decided not to allow public commenting.  I put the blog together this way because I did not want to manage comments that were irrelevant, off-topic, or otherwise offensive to me or other readers. 

After some email requests and some time spent reconsidering my position, I have decided to open Words + Images for commenting.  If there is one thing I miss about art school, I have to admit it is the conversations I had with my peers and the way we often spent an entire class picking an image or idea to the bone.

Also, I have a sense that after moving within the city limits in June, Words + Images will become a little more distinctly Baltimorean.  Why not allow a little more sense of community?  Why not invite a little banter?  Plus, I like reading blogs where a small community has formed and gathers on a regular basis to chew through the newest posts. 

I'm still working out how I want to moderate and manage comments, so don't be shocked if the comment form changes from time to time.  For now, I'm curious to see what conversation develops over the coming months.