In college, studio space was always at a premium, and that's putting it lightly. The reality: one big room to work in, plus a smaller room for storage of paintings and chemicals, struggled to accommodate around 30 upper-level studio students as well as maybe 40+ intro to painting students (according to my somewhat conservative estimates). It was a mess. I feel like work consistently got damaged in the storage room because there wasn't enough space to store half of what needed to go in there, and space constraints pressured us to create paintings that were portable at every stage of the process.

As an upperclassman producing very large (i.e. taller than myself) paintings and spending up to 18 hours per week in that room, I felt some entitlement to my own space. Along with the one other woman making huge paintings at that time, I left my work out in a corner of the studio. This area grew to include with my palette, paints, and lots of sketches and notes tacked up to the wall. Months later we were admonished and forced to end our “homesteading” in the corners of the room because, hey, what would happen if everyone did that? What a buzzkill, what a serious drag on the creative process. The art building has been gutted and remodeled since I graduated, so I hope students are now given adequate space to work.

As I said on Monday, work space is crucial. So, now that I have a place to call my own, it's time to start homesteading again!

After making a handy drawing of the planned studio/work area, I calculated that I'll have 22 feet of hangable wall space. Plus, even though the house is only 14 feet wide, looking at the drawing I realize there is a lot of floor space to be had as well. I guess all the junk sort of covers it up at this point, but hey, it has a lot more potential than that little corner of the painting studio!

I got to thinking a lot about our house during my week away from home in a condo in Vermont. It felt wonderful to exist in a space populated only by the things we needed. My mind was clear, my ambitions strong, my optimism fully out of its shell.

Maybe I could attribute some of these feelings to spending every day skiing and enjoying fantastic scenery instead of showing up at the office. Who knows, but I came home with plans: hold on to your hats, folks, I'm cleaning out my basement.

Once I returned home I immediately realized why I haven't purged the whole house before: it's hard, it's intimidating, it's overwhelming. For someone with ADD like myself, it's impossible to know where to begin. Not to mention the basement is downright cold and dank this time of year. I voluntarily face these realities now not just because my parents will soon drop off a truckload of my childhood possessions, but also because there is another possibility in the works. There is a reward, a dedicated art space at the end of this tunnel.

Freed from the shackles of clutter, I can focus on populating my space with only the things I need. And at this point I've come to realize I do need a place to store, display, and create art. Everyone does. Imagine going to work in an office every day and not actually having your own desk. Or imagine your desk chock full of junk that's never going to help you get the job done. Our creative space is just as important to developing good work.

More on this to come as the project develops, but for now...before pictures, anyone?

On Thursday evening I'll get into my specific plans/wants for the space, so keep following along. If you have a basement, you can do this too! Already have a fabulous art space in your home? Please share!

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!

Oh right, February is (eek!) a week and a half away.  I have a bad habit of making lots of short-term goals, then letting time sneak by unnoticed.  Let's see how the New Year's resolutions are shaping up.

1. Boost Words + Images interaction. I've been reading quite a bit about increasing commenting and traffic to a blog, and I'm happy to share some of the tips I've learned.  First and foremost, the key is to make relevant comments on other blogs within your niche.  Check.  Contributing to the blogging community is fun and rewarding.  After all, where else do you find such a gathering of folks sharing ideas about a topic?  The major effort I'm putting forth these days is more frequent updates: you may have noticed a regular full-sized update on Thursday evenings, too.  Even though I have a full-time job and plenty of other things to distract me, I know I need to put the time in to Words + Images to keep it alive and interesting.

2. Promote! Eh, I think my self-promotion needs to get a little more shameless.  I'm also on the lookout for appropriate guest posters and interviewees.

3. Get into some more galleries, grants, and contests. Uh-oh, no images on their way from the printer yet!  The lure of holding new prints in my hands will make sure this gets done, though...

4. Utilize and mobilize a Words + Images mailing list.  Hmmm.  I haven't done nearly enough thinking about this one, but there is now a sign-up page linked from the "about me" section of this site.
   

5. Get to know the Baltimore art scene. Meeting people is so intimidating for a recluse like me!

All in all, not a bad first month of the year.  How are you doing on your resolutions?  And, if you can, throw me some thoughts in the comments.  What are some strategies you use to get people exchanging ideas on your blog?  What are some great ways you've found to meet new people in your profession, and how does a timid person like me break the ice?  Do you send out email updates to keep folks in the loop?  Even better, for those of you who blog: what strategies do you use to maximize your time while providing consistent, quality content (I carry an idea notebook in my purse and make heavy use of Google Reader to glean ideas from favorite news sources)?

In the third week of the year, you can find me with my husband and in-laws enjoying prime skiing conditions in northern Vermont. When we arrived Saturday evening, one of the first things I did after unpacking the car was sit down on the couch and leaf through the Oaks 12 Journal. The journal, kept throughout the years by visitors to our condo, is a running narrative between 5-10 active journalers. Part of the magic of coming back to the same room every time is finding another year of writing from fellow residents.

Before anyone asks what this has to do with photography or fine art (it's a stretch but I'm on vacation, after all), for me it's all about the interplay of text and images. The topic has lingered on my mind lately because I made a New Year's resolution to send five photos to print from my latest work. I haven't done it yet, but I have populated my "idea notebook" with sketches for combining these very personal, domestic images with journaling.

Returning to the Vermont journal reminded me of the power of documenting personal histories in our own words. Every year I bring my camera and most photos just take themselves around here, but the way we weave a story into a place separates this experience from any other beautiful landscape. Here is where two tween girls who have never met in person, Gillian and Taylor, are making youthful memories and writing messages to each other in the journal. It's also where a grateful husband bonded with his wife and two little boys as she recovered from a battle with cancer. My husband spent childhood winters here and later proposed to me on the slope during New Year's fireworks.

So while I'll continue to take beautiful photos, the interwoven stories in the journal will create a richness of memory we could never achieve with pictures alone.

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 plot thickens over JPG Magazine's supposed departure. As I continue to read the news coming out from JPG and elsewhere, I find it difficult not to get cynical. After all, in the original goodbye letter, didn't editor in chief Laura Brunow Miner say “we sought out buyers, spoke with numerous potential investors, and pitched several last-ditch creative efforts, all without success?”

Either JPG did a pretty incomplete job looking for buyers – especially considering all the rumors that Flickr will be the buyer – or this was all part of the plan to cut staff in half and start a cash-only bidding war.

What's your take? Does something about this smell fishy?

In other news, I stumbled upon some humorous (that is, humorous because there were no injuries) “glad that's not me” photos of a skier who ended up suspended upside down sans pants on a lift in Vail, Colorado. Unfortunately, the photos – taken by a resort photographer off-duty and with his own camera – have cost the photographer his job with Sharpshooter Images.

Well, January 5 is rolling to a close and JPGMag.com is still up and running for the time being. Personally, I'm not harboring much enthusiasm for sudden redemption and prosperity, but I do view JPG Magazine's demise as a significant loss to the photo community. Why?

1. The synergistic relationship between the online community and the printed publication filled a unique niche in the contemporary photo scene. The interactive nature of the selection process gave the final product a richer meaning than a more traditional, behind-closed-doors jury.

2. Users could submit words and/or images. This was a match made in heaven for those of us multi-talented folks looking for a place to show off our writing and images side by side (as they should be).

3. Many unknown artists got work published and received valuable feedback from the community.

4. As I've said previously when commenting on the Baker Artist Awards, the newest generation of visual artists has come to expect a certain level of interactivity. No longer are impersonal submission processes and sterile magazine pages going to be stimulating and inspiring for new artists...or so I suspect.

The problem with user-generated content that hurts profitability is anyone can do it. The stumbling block facing fantastic, innovative projects like JPG and the Baker Awards is, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Sure, Baker and JPG unearth a lot of talented new artists, but by their very nature they also attract some mundane, poorly considered work that brings the whole community down. As the pool grows larger, so does the percentage of work that makes me sigh and ask “really?”

My thoughts in the aftermath of all this are, given that the playing field is definitely shifting toward a broader, more participatory model, how can the photo community address the “everyone wants to be a photographer” issue? How can we set standards without being exclusionary or elitist? How might the definition of “photographer” be altered by advances in technology, both online and on the shelf of the local camera store (or the Target, as the case may be)?

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