The Power of the Internet

-
The www is a wonderful place that can and does interconnect people from all corners of the globe. We can strut their stuff, like this blog, and a wealth of information is at our finger tips. But it can also be a monster for the unwary.

Take the case of artist Joanne Mattera and her self named art blog. Fed up with the ageism in the arts that favors the under thirties she decided to curate an exhibition for the over fifties. Called “50 over 50” she was going to show 50 works of art created by professional artists aged fifty or more. Her big mistake was to make it an open submission.

In her own words, “There were almost 100 submissions in my inbox this morning! When I posted this project here on the blog, I was thinking of it as something to involve my readers. Apparently the full text of this post was distributed by several arts organizations to their electronic bulletin boards and list serves.”

And the upshot? Again in her own words, “I cannot imagine processing 100 entries every day, or even half that, for the next two months. I am a working artist who maintains this blog as a labor of love. So with deep regrets I'm canceling this project.”

It’s a shame, it could have been an interesting exhibition. But I can sympathize with her, although part of me says mmmmm “Shoulda seen that one coming”.

On a positive note, through internet activity by friends and supporters of JPG Magazine, it has been given a new lease of life, 200,000 fans cannot be ignored. Seems the noise they were able to make has seen some viable life lines being thrown. As reported in their latest blog post “we have multiple credible buyers interested in giving JPG a home.”