June has been a month of heroic reconstruction here at Syntagma. It may not seem like that at first glance, but we’ve reorganized the place from top to bottom. We’ve also brought in a number of professionals to help out and, in some cases, write for us below the radar as part of specific Syntagma Teams.

This is a new system for us. It gives us a powerful in-house team for the first time, but without massive cost implications. I’m hoping it will move us in a different direction in the year to come.

We’ve also returned to Syntagma Media as our main name, with Syntagma Digital as the operating company.

Along the way some things had to go. The Allusionz network magazine — our poorest performer — will be put out to grass when its advertising contracts run out at the end of this month. Some of its sites have been moved onto LifeTimes magazine. They include : Marshall’s Art NYC, Steve’s Publisher’s Diary, Our Man in Stratford and Jazz Groove. Also Classy Classical and a rejuvenated Stage Latest, which will now concentrate on the West End and Broadway, plus ticket sales ads. Sad to lose so many sites and a few authors, but it’s a business and one can’t be sentimental about it.

We’re also hoping to spawn an offshoot of Syntagma Media in a new direction. We’re waiting on negotiations on this one. There may be some opportunities for existing, and other, authors in the new project. More later.

Essentially, we’ve distilled the Syntagma inventory down to its most profitable core in response to the awkward fact that “blog” networks are not being bought out anymore. The second half of the year should see us expanding out again from a sounder base.

So, after the fundamental change in market conditions in recent months, we’re now optimized for the new opportunities. In many ways we’re better placed than our competitors. The huge success of the Glam network — announced this week — reinforces our decision in going for retail as the future of Web business. But, we are still keeping our powder dry and our independence intact. It’s all to play for, and we are very well positioned for new developments.

If most of us were asked who our favourite modern artist was, we’d be stuck for a reply. Any other time period and we might say, Turner, Picasso, Cezanne, Constable …

But today we simply don’t know too many modern artists, and those we do tend to specialize in unmade beds and pathetic collages of everday objects.

I did a piece a while ago about an artist who sent a sculpted head, mounted on a bought-in plinth, to the Royal Academy’s prestigious Summer Exhibition in London. Unfortunately, the head got separated from the plinth during transit.

A panel of worthies duly examined the entries. They rejected the head but accepted the plinth, which was probably made in China.

However, all is not lost. The lovely Amy Crehore, a favourite of our own Marshall Sponder over at Art NYC, continues to paint delectable pictures with a faintly mythic quality. Here’s her latest. it’s called Wild Cat Fever :

You can view it over on Art NYC.

You can also see an interview with Amy Crehore over on our Celebrity at Work site.

Syntagma Digital Authors

Now there’s versatility for you, bridging the “two cultures” of art and science in New York City, a place built on versatile personalities.

Marshall Sponder tours the galleries and exhibitions of the Big Apple reporting back on the latest pictures and buzz for our Art NYC site, which is rapidly gaining a huge reputation in art circles around the city.

Here’s Marshall painting his own portrait :

Apart from working as a Web analyst for IBM, Marshall also has a thriving interest in his own painting, which he throws himself into at the Brooklyn Artists Gym. Of his self-portrait he says :

“I did make it over to Brooklyn Artists Gym this afternoon and ended up doing a self portrait. Here’s a picture Peter Wallace, owner and manager of BAG took of me with my SideKick 3 camera. I feel this painting, self portrait, is one of my best. The photo is decent — but many of the subtleties are not showing up in the digital picture — the work is much richer when looking at it — and some of the lighting I captured on my face looks more arbitrary in the photo than in real life.”

If you really can’t get enough of art in New York City, Marshall’s spot is the place to be.

Art NYC is part of our Allusionz network magazine.