Baker Artist Awards

My favorites from the Baker Artist Awards
Next Monday, the Baker Artist Awards will give out their first round of "B-Grants" for the year. Are you on the site yet, oh artist friends of mine?
If you're somehow living in a hole (one with internet connection) and don't know about the grants - let me school you now. The Baker Art Awards were developed in 2008 to promote and support the arts in Baltimore by way of a free website for artists to upload images of their work. Everyone gets a personal "nomination" page which is shared with internet users round the world on the main Baker site (thus putting Baltimore on the map as a place where folks make some pretty cool stuff - rather than just reenacting scenes from The Wire all day). Site users are allowed to comment on, favorite, share, and view artists work & profiles. A select jury chooses from the full pool of artists (which includes dancers, musicians, filmmakers and writers, along with visual artists) for prize winners for both the Mary Saywers Baker prize ($25,000 awarded to three individuals in January) and "B-Grants" (smaller prizes of $1000 each, given out in November, December and January). It's free to start your own nomination page, and the only requirement is that you are a resident of the Baltimore region. (See HERE for details).

Above is a collection of some of my personal favorites from the nomination pool so far. You can check out who made what by clicking right HERE. You can view my own page right HERE... and if you're still reading this blogpost and haven't left it to sign up yet, CLICK HERE.