Side Arts is a CRM for artisans that offers an all-in-one marketing and sales service that helps artisans promote their work and retain customers. We launched in March, started generating revenue, and grew to become Philly’s largest online arts community.

We are getting ready to launch nationally and are seeking a lead developer/ technical co-founder for programming support. With a benchmarked model for growth, we have a strategy for milestone-based equity for the right person.

We are looking for a talented WordPress / PHP Developer who will be responsible for creating compelling and innovative solutions for the Side Arts platform.

Your responsibilities:

• Collaborate with team members to understand business and user requirements
• Translate requirements into highly engaging and compelling concepts
• Integrate and customize apis for the platform, helpful but not necessary if you have experience with gaming, marketplace, and/or email marketing apis.
• Effectively conceptualize, design and create high-quality visuals in a variety of digital formats
• Communicate development strategy and rationale to stakeholders
• Ability to deliver results in a timely manner.
• Contribute suggestions or ideas to improve branding and messaging

Your qualifications:

• 2-5 years of WordPress / PHP development experience
• Strong grasp of visual design principles, information design, user experience, typography, color, imagery and iconography
• Compelling portfolio that demonstrates innovative development and design
• Primary skill: WordPress / PHP Development
• Additional skills: HTML, CSS
• Ability to work with constructive criticism as well as adhere to deadlines
• A work style that is extremely detail oriented
• Philadelphia local

The West Collection of Contemporary Art iPhone app called West Collects is now available for download at iTunes.  The free app allows you to view artists submissions for inclusion in the West Collection of Contemporary Art, one of the largest art collections of it’s kind, and vote for a people’s choice award.  Philly.SideArts artists can sign up at the West Collects website, it’s free and easy to enter up to ten images, your resume, bio and artist statement, then download the app to your smart phone and vote.  The only way to vote is with the app.  The artist with the most votes wins a purchase of their work for the collection, $100K of the total $300K purchase prize is dedicated to buying art by Philadelphia artists, $25K for People’s Choice!  Shameless plug – view my artist profile on West Collects.  Vote!

“Breakdown of the $300,000 West Collects Acquisition Prize:

$275,000 goes towards collecting artwork for the West Collection

$275,000 worth of artworks will be collected through West Collects 2012. $100,000 of this has been earmarked to go to artists living within the five Greater Philadelphia counties. (The West Collection is housed publicly in Oaks, PA located outside of Philadelphia.  The Greater Philadelphia applicant counties are: Delaware County, Philadelphia County, Montgomery County, Bucks County, and Chester County.) $175,000 will go to artists living anywhere else in the world. Winners will be announced on May 15, 2012.

$25,000 of West Collects 2012 will go to one artist whose work is voted “most popular” on our West Collects iPhone app from Nov 15, 2011-May 14, 2012.” – West Collects Website.

DoN Brewer, Philly.SideArts

Once Upon a Time, Anne Ambrose

Once Upon a Time by Anne Ambrose, acrylic on canvas is on view in the expansive art exposition, Art Ability 2011 at the Bryn Mawr Rehab Center in Malvern, PA.  The painting captures an exuberant narrative, creating a dialog between archetypal fairy tale characters, naively drawn with drippy paint and loose brush work and a contemporary palette of yellow green and chartreuse like the colors in a Clarisse Cliff tea set.  Activated color, emotive composition and expressive marks vibrate with intensity and youthful suspense like a wonderland mash up of all modern art up to now.  Anne Ambrose lives and works in Tennessee, she grew up in the bayous of Louisiana but this painting with its sophisticated impressionistic style has a very urbane vibe, the underlying outsider fantasy crosses cultures.  Of course, every good fairy tale has a villain, the glowing specter lurking behind the young couple reminds the viewer of fate; Anne, the artist has a degenerative bone disease.

The 16th Annual Art Ability International Juried Exhibition and Sale of Art and Fine Crafts by Artists with Disabilities attracts entries from around the world, this year 200 artists from 35 states and seven countries are represented.  The Exhibition committee this year, “veered away from an academic vision to one where self-taught artists and imaginative innovators have their say.“  Anne Ambrose‘s painting, Once Upon a Time, has a lot to say.

The event is held every fall. Proceeds of the Art Ability opening receptions help support Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital patient and community programs. The Bryn Mawr Rehab Art Ability show is free and open to the public located at 414 Paoli Pike, Malvern, PA 19355 484-596-5400.

Read more about Art Ability.

DoN Brewer, Contributing Writer, Side Arts

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