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?