And Then My Presence Went Dark

Taken on Bainbridge Island,WA - Spring 2009

My website is gone. I couldn't bring myself to pay Apple for another year of hosting an aesthetically stunted site, yet I currently have nothing to replace it with either. All my attention at the moment is turned toward finishing up work for my exhibitions this summer and starting a second film. There is little chance I will be snuggling up with Dreamweaver anytime soon so, to prevent my complete disappearance from the electronic ether, I'm having my "tidal wave" of home page traffic forwarded to my Flickr account. I hope Flickr is up to the bandwidth requirements!

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I've read many articles and books about the professional practices of artists, but none of them come close to offering as much good advice as an instructor I had in college— he said that you should never be spending more time on promotion and business than you were on creating. As soon as you'd violated that percentage you just had a job like anyone else. 

Over the past year I've invested a significant amount of time establishing a "web presence." It has been something of a boon to the five or six friends who would care about what I'm working on or thinking about even if I didn't spill it all out online, because it makes it easier for them to check in. But as for garnering an online community of supporters and compatriots; that demands a commitment of time and energy I simply cannot give. I admire those who can do it, and I wish them the best of luck Tweeting, Tubing, and Facebooking. For me, Flickr will act as a substitute until I can sit down and enjoy the creation of something beautiful for the web. Perhaps after two months of intensive work in the studio I might actually embrace a little time with Adobe as opposed to days of breathing in charcoal dust. Perhaps not. . .