:: what is ARTish ? ::

ARTish exists to provide a cohesiveness to the art scene in the Phoenix Metro area.
Although ARTish was developed and is maintained by Tony Ash, ARTish is not one person or entity, but a community.
It is the collective cooperation and participation of the ARTs community that will determine the direction and the potential of the site.
ARTish intends to introduce opportunities where there would otherwise be none.
ARTish is and will remain free for ARTists so that they may have an opportunity to enable themselves.

PRESENT
Currently ARTish offers a multitude of features:
The Image Gallery – this section of the site is for artists to upload their photos of their work. There is no limit on the size or amount of images, so the artists can include their entire portfolio on ARTish if they so choose. ARTish users can enable commenting on their gallery in order to get direct feedback from viewers all around the world.
Music – on ARTish Music, bands and musicians have the ability to host mp3s for streaming and download. The music pages can also include lyrics, biographies, discographies, and whatever other pertinent information the artists choose.
Event Calendar – The ARTish calendar contains a current listing of what is going on around town, from gallery openings and artist ‘meet and greets’, to performance work, film/video, and poetry slams. Musicians can post their upcoming performances and venues can list their upcoming schedules. Focused on the local community and smaller independent venues, the Event Calendar succeeds in providing a one-stop shop for art related events in the valley.
Discussion Forums – ARTish forums is a place for the community to get together and discuss whatever is on their minds. Practically leading the nation in urban sprawl, people who live in the Phoenix metropolitan area are at severe disadvantage when it comes to real interaction with other members of the arts community. The Discussion Forums intend to bridge that gap and to also provide a comfortable environment to nurture discussion, debate, critique, and conversation.
The Magazine – ARTish magazine brings dynamic content to the site to keep readers and viewers coming back for more! By taking regular periodical content, and lacing it with multimedia presentations, we are determined to foster a creative way to inform our audience. We intend to cover the following areas: Local Art News, Articles on artists and venues, Interviews with artists and people from the local arts community, Reviews of art shows and art spaces, Critical Theory, Editorial Commentary and Creative Writing. The ARTish magazine will be a produced by a cooperative of writers, some of them who have their own periodical projects, and others who are seeking an outlet for their voice. This model will not only provide the writers with another channel, but also help them propagate their own projects through ARTish. The publication, like the site as a whole, is a community entity where members of the community direct the content. The main difference between the magazine and other areas of the site is there will be an editorial eye watching over the content.

PAST
ARTish spawned from the website eucarya.org. Eucarya was a website for local artists and musicians to display their work. The problem was it was a static site where each artist would contact Tony and he would have to build and individualize every artist page. When word got out he was overwhelmed with requests. Needless to say, the model on which Eucarya was built upon needed some improvement, and that is where ARTish began.

FUTURE
A complete site redesign is in the works to bring ARTish forward and keep things fresh. ARTish will be easier and quicker to use and will be available on mobile devices such as PDAs and cellphones. Multimedia features such as music and video will be upgraded and ARTish galleries will be integrated with their profiles. ARTists will also be able to sell their work on ARTish if they so choose. This redesign is in the works but we will need help from you to make it happen.

Please make a donation to help us survive and flourish!

Also Coming soon to ARTish will be an extensive Gallery and Venue listing with interactive maps. Content for these sections can be dynamic so that the galleries and venues can update their page with their current shows and events.
A “how to” section is also in the works to cultivate the Do It Yourself aesthetic necessary for any up and coming artist. This section will provide tutorials on things like “how to photograph your work for slides, print, and the web” to “how to stretch a canvas” and "how to get a gallery show" .
ARTish is also in the initial stages of becoming a 501c3 Nonprofit organization. In this transformation ARTish will be more enabled to receive grants in order to further the development of the site. A complete rework of the site is planned to make the interface cleaner and easier to navigate as well as bringing a few new features as well.