Sunday, January 27, 2008
Introduction: About The Project
I launched SeattleArtists.com in 1999 as an online network and marketplace for freelance independent artists in the greater Seattle and Pacific Northwest region. After coming off active duty in the U.S. Army, I was looking for ways to increase my work as a freelance photographer in Seattle, WA and realized that it was virtually impossible for someone to get visibility for their work unless they were formally represented by a gallery. I also realized that there were not really any good places to showcase my photography online. So the work began to launch a new online art community for those struggling to get their artwork out there.
In only 8 short years, the internet has catapulted to extremely wide-spread use. Today there are several popular art websites that offer artists a venue to show their work, however, I still believe that SeattleArtists.com has a solid loyal base of supporters who continue to use the site as a way to promote their work. This is because SeattleArtists.com has always been about Local Art and local artwork has continued to be the cornerstone of our site. I have never censored the work or the artists and as long as you are a local artist, producing your own original work, you have always been welcome on SeattleArtists.com.
I’ve been maintaining SeattleArtists.com since it’s launch as a labor of love, and although the site has gone through a few facelifts, the backend code has remained relatively unchanged over the years. Periodically, I have added some major enhancements such as the very popular free art events calendar and the art forums, as well as improving the artist online profiles and galleries, but because the site was built on year-2000 era programming, it has been difficult to really expand the site correctly and take advantage of emerging tools and technologies.
But it’s been on my mind for probably over a year now, maybe longer, that it’s time to upgrade SeattleArtists.com and really give it some legs… and now the time has come… I have decided to embark on a massive overhaul of the underlying programming code and structure of the SeattleArtists.com website to turbocharge the site and allow for greater growth, flexibility and usefulness… to basically modernize the site and take advantage of the latest web technologies.... hopefully, anyway.
THIS blog, Project SeattleArtists.com, is now the development narrative and ongoing case study to document the project and discuss the key milestones along the way as we overhaul SeattleArtists.com. Part of this new project will also include a new nationwide artists website based on the same functionality and community platform as SeattleArtists.com. I’ve had this new expanded website on my brain for probably over a year now. You are actually already at the home of the new website, called ArtFlurry.com.
Please feel free to comment along the way and provide me with your feedback. Just click on the ‘comments’ link below and complete the form at the bottom of the page.
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Joe McDonald
Owner/Webmaster