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My previous column introduced public and private museums on the Internet. Now, let's look at a great, free way for just about anyone to publish their art, photographs or passionate collections, without creating a whole Web site. It's your own online gallery space. And here's a bonus: If your hard drive crashes, or (heaven forbid) your place goes up in flames, images of your art or treasured photos will stay safe and sound in your online gallery.

Danger, Will Robinson!

I try to look out for people, especially in the Wild, Wooly Web (which is what www should stand for). I want to be very clear in disclosing that once your image is published to the very public Internet, just about anything can happen to it. People can copy it, keep a version forever, and, through Internet search engine caching, it's possible for people to see the image long after you think it has been removed.

While you can attempt to protect your image by watermarking and copyrighting it, there are no guarantees that people who see your work will behave themselves. Naturally, my column readers respect artists' work on Web sites. Don't make me call Miss Manners!

Deviant artists

Please don't turn the page (or spill your coffee). DeviantART is one of the free online gallery providers you should check out. It's a vibrant community of artists where people of all skill levels meet and interact. In addition to unlimited storage space (although individual file size has a limit), deviantART also highlights varied artists in its Daily Deviations panel.

Emperial Young is one of the enthusiastic and talented artists found at deviantART (disclosure: She is my lovely daughter). Emperial has had galleries with deviantART since 2002.

"It's very easy to do," my daughter told me. "Once you register, you just log in and start submitting your work. Generally, the interaction is very positive, but because anyone can get a deviantART account, sometimes people aren't polite. For the most part, people are very accepting, and no matter what you like, there's always someone else on deviantART who likes the same thing."

DeviantART has everything: anime, sci-fi, mathematically generated fractal art, photographs, mixed media, representational realism. Many of the artists take commissions, and deviantART can also supply artists with a virtual storefront to sell reproductions of their work.

PhotoSite

Many months ago, I was visiting the Bead Defined/Bessolo's shop on Jefferson Street when I noticed interesting art printed on a T-shirt. Later, an artist/reader named LoLo Monae provided me a link to an online gallery of his work, which is hosted by PhotoSite, and I recognized the shirt imagery there.

While PhotoSite sounds like an online photo album site (and it is), a creative mind will immediately grasp its potential to present any kind of artwork that can be photographed.

"My gallery is a phat way to give others a better understanding of how I roll in the game of Art," Monae said. "Once upon a time I was on the net looking for a way to share my work. I [searched on] 'sharing photos free.' [And I found]... PhotoSite!

"My Internet sharing woes were solved. PhotoSite came with other options, like borders for your work, a slide show feature and guest book for visitors to comment and link to their work."

PhotoSite will publish up to 150 images for free, and you can customize the way your site looks. It's a great way to share vacation photos, or have an online portfolio of your work, no matter what your medium. As the site promises, "If you can use a digital camera, you can use PhotoSite." Actually, even if you can't use a digital camera, you can use PhotoSite or other online gallery sites. You can have someone else photograph your work, or scan your work in at Kinko's and upload the images from a CD or other storage means.

I've got a serious 'tile jones'

One of the things that always gets me groovin' is tile. Moroccan, stone, glass, metal, handmade, mold-made, etched, frosted, mounted, melted, minted ... I've got a serious jones for tile. Next time, I'll visit tile purveyors and divulge some fabulous links showing the kind of tile I dream about.

deviantART: www.deviantart.com/join/

Buy deviantART images (prints, mugs, calendars): http://shop.deviantart.com/

PhotoSite: www.photosite.com/

Epilogue: www.epilogue.net/index.html (selective)

Artists’ galleries online (click on smaller gallery images to see them larger):

Emperial’s gallery: http://emperial.deviantart.com/gallery/

LoLo’s gallery: http://lwiser.photosite.com/artworks/

http://dholms.deviantart.com/gallery/

Fractal artist: http://rykk.deviantart.com/gallery/ (amazing!)

http://faboarts.deviantart.com/gallery/ (charming illustrator!)

http://suriasys.deviantart.com/gallery/ (photo manipulator)

http://thetragictruth-of-me.deviantart.com/gallery/

http://aidos.deviantart.com/gallery/