I have a complicated relationship with the internet. It started very young under the tutelage of my geek father who had me programming on MOO’s and in Microworld, gave me an email and an instant messaging account, and tried to help me start my website all before I reached double digits. I’ve also had various unsuccessful blogs but never found myself truly devoted to them. Part of this is because when I think of blogs, I think of my father writing on his blog everyday and the geeky/political topics that I would then be forced to listen to over the dinner table.
And yet here I am, lying in bed on my one free day this week typing away on a blog that I have managed to write on at the very least once every two weeks (usually once a week) since January. While this isn’t the spurting amount of information that most blogs have, it’s a level of consistency that I have never managed to maintain before and within my current life style, it’s something I’m quite proud of.
So why is this blog actually alive?
The biggest part is that I’m writing about something that I’m passionate about. Art, people, and the connection between them are three of the things that will make me drop everything. Everyday I come in contact with at least one idea that I could write about because community art is the center of my life. It’s what I live and breath in my jobs, school, and relationships.
Another important part is that I decided that I’m writing this primarily as a documentation of my own thought. While I love when people read my blog (the stat button that I check incessantly tells me if people actually do or not), I only take minor blows to my ego when I write something that doesn’t get much attention. That’s because, much in the way that I journal everyday to build up a documentation of my life, I write in this blog to build a documentation of my growth as a community artist.
But now I want a little more. I’m currently surrounded by the STUDIO of Possibilities, the creative center that I am building with Ulrich Inge and Sam Newland. We’ve started trying to spread our idea by talking to people, by shamelessly marketing ourselves, and by making connections between our idea and what is already out there. I think about how excited I get whenever someone reads my work and I realized that there are two things I need to do.
1.) Read other art blogs. It’s a karmic circle. Read and comment to get new ideas, give ideas, and, show other people writing that someone does care.
2.) Make myself more of a presence on the internet through writing more often and just as consistently while commenting on other ideas to create connections.
To begin fulfilling my new goals I googled art blogs and stumbled across http://art-blogging.blogspot.com/. Here’s a whole list ready-made for me! A whole group of people writing about art waiting for me to read them. And who knows, maybe I’ll be lucky enough to get on that list as well. And then maybe I’ll actually be able to say the word “blog” without cringing and lowering my voice.