One of the things I have tried to preserve at Open Arts Forum is a certain kind of space.
By that I mean a space in which the work itself remains central: the poem, the story, the photograph, the painting, the piece of music, the essay. That may sound simple, but it is not always easy to maintain online.
After all, it costs money to run a site—sometimes quite a lot of money—and yet most people expect to visit sites for free. Site owners therefore have to support the effort somehow, and advertising is the route many of them take. I understand that. I went down that road myself in the past, although not with this site.
Here, I chose not to do that because I wanted to create a site that I myself would actually like to visit: one where the creative work is not crowded by commercial clutter or treated as bait to keep readers clicking. I wanted a space where a poem could simply be a poem, a photograph a photograph, a story a story, presented with a little room around it and a little respect for the reader’s attention.
An arts site should not feel hurried or crowded. It should not give the impression that the real purpose of the page lies somewhere other than the work itself. Even when advertising is handled tastefully, it changes the atmosphere. It introduces another set of priorities and another kind of pressure. Over time, those pressures can begin to influence design, editorial choices, and tone, even when no one intends them to.
Open Arts Forum is not a large operation, nor does it try to be everything. What it tries to be is a place where art and writing can be presented cleanly, read thoughtfully, and discussed seriously. Keeping the site ad-free has been part of that effort from the start.
I’m glad to be able to provide such a space, and I’m grateful to those who have chosen to spend time here. I’m grateful as well to the other editors, who volunteer their time and judgment to help bring worthy work to the fore and to make this a more welcoming and vibrant community.
The site is not perfect, and I am always working on it and thinking about how it can be improved. But the decision to keep it free of advertising has been central to what I wanted it to be from the beginning.
