Welcome, Artists!

Welcome, Baltimore-Area Artists!

The Baker Artist Portfolios is a free, online portfolio website open to artists working in all disciplines who live or work in Baltimore City or one of its five surrounding counties — Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, Carroll County, Harford County, and Howard County.

Artists with portfolios are also eligible for one of the annual Baker Artist Awards, totaling $90,000 in monetary prizes annually.

The Baker Artist Portfolios and the Baker Artist Awards were established by the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund and are a program of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.

Deadline for 2026 Baker Artist Awards: Friday, January 30, 2026 at 5pm.
Need help? Email [email protected]
Join our email list to stay updated on workshops and events.

If you are interested in exploring the Baker Artist Portfolios, click here!

Video Info Session for 2026 Season

The video below features a pre-recorded Info Session with Baker Artist Portfolios Program Manager Alix Fenhagen. Alix shares an overview of the Baker program and Portfolios, including the program’s history and a demonstration of how to build your own Portfolio.

In addition to this video, artists are encouraged to review this entire page to avoid common pitfalls and to become aware of helpful resources you can return to throughout the process.

Video Content

Start: Introduction & Baker Artist Portfolios Program overview
6:18 The Baker Artist Awards
13:44 Adjudication criteria and process
19:26 Tour of the website
24:59 Tour of a Portfolio
29:28 Editing your Portfolio
38:32 Adding a Work Sample to your portfolio (adding an image)
42:17 The available for purchase option
43:56 Projects
46:26 Adding remote video
48:07 Adding Media through Choose Existing Media
49:49 Removing a Project
50:43 Removing a piece of Media

More Information & How to Start Your Portfolio

Be sure to review through the following sections before starting your portfolio!

ABOUT THE BAKER ARTIST AWARDS

All artists who have an active Baker Artist Portfolio at each year's deadline will be considered for one of that year's six awards.

The Baker Artist Awards recognize artists who demonstrate excellence in three areas:

1) Mastery of Craft
2) Depth of Artistic Exploration
3) Unique Vision

In 2026, one artist in each of the six artistic disciplines...

• Visual Arts - 2D
• Visual Arts - 3D
• Film & Photography
• Interdisciplinary
• Literary Arts
• Performing Arts

...will be awarded the $10,000 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize. One of these six artists will be selected to receive the additional $30,000 Mary Sawyers Imboden prize, for a total of $40,000.

Along with cash awards, selected awardees in the Visual Arts and Interdisciplinary categories are invited to participate in a bi-annual exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Click here to meet some of the past Baker Artist Awardees and view their portfolios!

The Deadline for the 2026 Baker Artist Awards is January 30, 2026 at 5pm.

Recent Opportunities for Artists with Portfolios

Artists with portfolios are invited to participate in a wide variety of opportunities, including showcases, exhibitions, and access to other events and venues to share and sell their work.

Here are some recent opportunities available to artists with Baker Artist Portfolios:

WTMD First Thursday Festival

In addition to providing an opportunity for any Baker Artist to table as part of Baker Artist Alley at the outdoor summer event, through a partnership with WTMD, this past summer, Baker Artists were invited to apply to curate/creative direct an interactive exhibition featuring the work of multiple other Baker Artists for festival goers to engage with and experience.

Baltimore x Baltimore Festival

This past summer free tabling opportunities were available for Baker Artists at this summer festival in the Inner Barbor put on by Waterfront Partnership. Previous seasons have included a Baker Awardee curating one of the festival's events with performances by other Baker Artists on the site.

Baltimore Book Festival

All literary artists with active Baker Artist Portfolios were invited to sign up for a slot to sign, sell, show, or share their work at the Baker Artist Portfolios Literary Artist table during Baltimore Book Festival.

Biennial Off The Web Exhibition

Off The Web invited any artist with a Baker Artist Portfolio to share one piece of art at The Peale. Over 200 artists of all disciplines participated in the exhibition and series of live events over the course of the last Off The Web, which ran from November 7th, 2024 through January 19th, 2025.

ELIGIBILITY

To create a Baker Artist Portfolio or be eligible for a Baker Artist Awards, artists must:

be over 21 years old since September 1, 2024
have have been a legal resident of the Baltimore region since September 1, 2024 (one year prior to the opening of the current open portfolio season). The Baltimore region is defined as: Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Carroll County, Harford County and Howard County.
maintain a Baker Artist Portfolio that includes a minimum of one “work sample” and one “project.”
reactivate their portfolio each year to confirm eligiblity.

NEXT->

GETTING STARTED

Download the Instruction Manual

Click here to download the comprehensive Instruction Manual for the 2026 Baker Season!

We recommend using this as a reference as you create and build out your portfolio.

Diagram of a Portfolio

*for a portfolio to be considered active, it must have a minimum of one WORK SAMPLE and one PROJECT containing at least one piece of media. Your portfolio will not show up in the search on the site or eligible for a Baker Artist Award until it is active.

What's new this year?

Artistic Disciplines for 2026 Baker Artist Awards Season

For the 2025/ 2026 Baker Artist Awards Season the artistic disciplines on the Baker Artist Portfolios website have been reorganized to the following:

Visual Art - 2D (painting, drawing, printmaking)
Visual Art - 3D (sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, textile)
Film & Photography (including video, animation, projection, digital art)
Performing Arts (including music, dance, theatre, and performance)
Literary Arts (including fiction, non-fiction, poetry)
Interdisciplinary Art* (including installation art, multi-media art )

The above examples of work in each discipline are not exhaustive or strictly prescriptive. If you have a question about where your work best fits, please email [email protected].

*Please note that for our definition of Interdisciplinary Art, we are referring to individual works that combine elements from multiple different disciplines. i.e., a video installation using projected media and sound clips. If you make individual works in a variety of different disciplines, please select a primary discipline for your portfolio.

Info Session Schedule

Want to learn more about the Baker Artist Portfolios and associated awards?

Have questions about the program or website?

Need help with your portfolio?

Want to hear tips and pointers?

Join us for a Baker Info Session!

Each Baker Info Session session is 90 minutes in length, and features a presentation from GBCA Staff with detailed program overviews and instructions on using the site.

This year, we are offering a series of both in-person and virtual sessions.

Virtual Sessions

Watch at any time! Click here for a recorded Info Session for the 2026 season.

In-Person Sessions

Baker Artist Peer Review Session: Sun., Jan. 11, 2026, 2-4 p.m.
Connect with other artists in your discipline to review your Baker Artist Portfolios and share feedback with one another at The Peale (225 Holliday St, Baltimore City)
Baker Working Sessions: Jan. 4 - Jan. 23, 2026
30 minute, one-on-one sessions with a GBCA staff member, providing hands-on technical assistance or feedback for artists on their individual portfolios (sign-up form will be shared soon!)

Click here to sign up for one of these sessions!

More sessions will be added to the schedule over the next few weeks, so make sure to check back soon for additions to the list of upcoming Virtual and In-Person Sessions!

DEADLINE: All artists with an active portfolio on Friday, January 30, 2026 at 5:00 pm will be considered for an award.