Baker Artist Portfolios

I began painting 50 years ago, and I switched primarily to working in video about 35 years ago. While I often return to painting, I remain fascinated with the power and flexibility of the video medium. As it advances technologically, video continues to provide me with the means to "paint in time". The impact and quality of the still image is still very important to me, however, and I choose to display many still frames from my videos here in these project arrays.

I've been creating and exhibiting works in video art formats since 1979. My single channel video work and installation work utilizing video have been exhibited nationally and internationally. In addition to individual projects, I collaborate regularly with performing artists, choreographers, and poets in an attempt to find new solutions for the presentation of live arts utilizing live and recorded aspects of the video medium. I'm including here several examples of projects produced in collaboration with choreographer Carol Hess, choreographer and dancer Paula Josa-Jones, poet Elizabeth Goldring, and performance artist Mary-Averett Seelye to represent my ongoing involvement with artists from these related disciplines.  I'm adding here my most recent project, "The Inner Eye: From the Outside In", in collaboration with Elizabeth Goldring, completed September 2024.  I'm also including a range of documentary video projects I produced on behalf of artists working at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA.

In addition to my recent video projects ("11 Time Paintings", "Sky Buy", "Wet", "Frontier", "Barcelona Mosaics", etc.), I've also included four earlier projects: "Leaving the Ground", "Forest Dream Code", "Quantum Dream" and "8 Short Processes", because many of the interests and techniques I was pursuing when I first started experimenting with video are reflected in various ways in my more recent works.

I received a B.A. degree in Studio Art from Oberlin College in 1971 and a Master of Science in Visual Studies degree from the M.I.T. Center For Advanced Visual Studies in 1981. After teaching Video Art at the Massachusetts College of Art from 1984-1988, I joined the faculty of the UMBC Department of Visual Arts in 1988.  I served as Graduate Program Director of the Imaging and Digital Arts MFA program from 2001-2007, and I served as Chairperson of the department from 2008-2015.  I retired from UMBC in July 2020.