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Letter from the Editor

February.01.2007

One year ago today I had the honor of posting the content put forth by our first contributors for the very first issue of Visual Codec. The joy I felt on that day is perhaps commensurate with the dysphoria I feel today in announcing that we will be putting the Visual Codec monthly online magazine as well as its weekday regional newswire on an indefinite (and most probably permanent) hiatus.

On the upside, the One Shot 2006 project will move forward to its conclusion (stay tuned on the progress of the flipbook), and we are also busy sorting out the magazine archives for easy future online access. Visual Codec on the whole will also continue to consider future collaborative projects, the nature of which will be announced if and when they become a reality.

And now that the hard part is out of the way, perhaps you are asking yourself about the harder part: "Why?"

Before I attempt to satisfy that question, perhaps it is helpful to know why the publication was created in the first place. In answer, I submit a quote from my first Visual Codec editorial, which states that the publication was created to "...encourage the cross-pollination of our immediate [visual arts] communities and also poise the publication to serve as a sort of regional baedeker for the visual arts community at large."

In essence, I perceived both a gap in cultural cross-connections as well as in top to bottom coverage of the visual arts in our region and, always preferring the court to the sidelines, I quickly turned my perception of a gap into a plan for a bridge. In short, I built the technical and administrative framework necessary to support a monthly online magazine focused solely on our regional visual arts, one that swiftly attracted a talented freelance staff who populated it with the kind of content that draws a crowd.

And draw a crowd it did. In fact, it drew such a crowd that we were inspired at every turn to add new features, develop new types of content, add new names to the freelance staff, and even host a regional juried review.

All this is to say that I think, though we seem to be facing an ending of sorts, the ideas explored and the connections built here on the site have already gone and will continue to go a long way towards our initial goal of "cross-pollination," and that the One Shot 2006 flipbook, when it arrives, may in fact also fulfill our dream of providing a "sort of regional baedeker."

And now, you are likely still asking yourself: "Why then, is Visual Codec going off the air?"

The answer lies somewhere in here: As much as I like to think of Visual Codec and its freelance staff as a small cultural phenom that I simply helped to engender, the bare truth is that it is a phenom that takes a lot of my own personal time, money, and sweat to continue to run in the manner to which we have all become accustomed.

When it became clear that, instead of drawing a sustainable amount of resources from my life, Visual Codec had instead eclipsed my life, I spent a couple of agonizing months exploring whether I could move the publication forward in a different direction.

Regretfully, all roads ultimately led here, to the part where I'm telling you what I'm telling you.

In conclusion, I do hope that this decision does not draw undue attention away from the efforts of the Visual Codec contributors, or the One Shot 2006 jury members and their Top 100 artists/teams. All told, I'm so very proud that such a small publication was able to draw such a distinguished crowd in such short order....

I blame it on the quality of our content, which, in the end, really had very little to do with me personally and much more to do with the quality of the artists, curators, and art writers to be found in our region today, elements of a vibrant regional scene that will easily outlive our little online magazine.

Take care, then, and see you around,

m.

Founding Editor
Visual Codec
editor@visualcodec.com