Are you thinking of starting a blog of your own? I’m in the process of updating mine and have spent hours googling inspiration. More on that later, but in the meantime, I thought you might appreciate these thoughtfully designed WordPress themes.
LINKS: Manifest – a minimal theme with a literary look and feel. Neue Themes – four boxy themes, ideal for artists who use the grid. Space – a highly readable, typography driven theme.
Have you read Nicholas Carr’s, “The Shallows?” If you feel torn and distracted by social media like I sometimes do then it may be a good read for you.
Since, as Carr states below, hyperlinks reduce comprehension I’m trying something new. Instead of offering links within the body of each post, I’ll be listing them at the end. Let me know what you think.
As a filmmaker I’ve watched with dismay as high-speed internet access, alongside a hard push by Silicon Valley intellectuals to make everything “free,” has gutted the music and newspaper industries. As broadband streaming becomes the preferred way to watch long-format TV shows and feature films it’s only a matter of time, I worry, before filmmakers’ livelihoods follow those of freelance writers and musicians down the proverbial drain.
Thank goodness for Jaron Lanier’s humanist manifesto, You Are Not a Gadget. Lanier, a modern-day Renaissance Man (musician, technology guru and philosopher) reminds us that we make technology to serve our human needs and shouldn’t feel obligated to “flatten” our lives to serve the needs of technology. A former proponent of open-source creativity Lanier now advocates for a new digital commerce that will hopefully enable artists to receive payment for their digital creations. This influentual book is a must-read for any artist working in music or film and highly recommended for anyone using social media (blog, FaceBook, Twitter, etc.) to promote their analog works.
Jaron Lanier on painting…
A physical oil painting cannot convey an image created in another medium; it is impossible to make an oil painting look just like an ink drawing, for instance, of vice versa. But a digital image of sufficient resolution can capture any kind of perceivable image – or at least that’s how you’ll think of it if you believe in bits too much.
Of course, it isn’t really so. A digital image of an oil painting is forever a representation, not a real thing. An oil painting changes with time; cracks appear on it’s face. It has a texture, odor and a sense of presence and history …
In a world where everything digital is seen as “free,” physical paintings matter more than ever to artists and people seeking a respite from their online selves, I think. The physics of paint, the way it carries pigment and reflects light, its texture, its realness, is a worthy subject of painting. Encaustic is especially great at showing these things.
If I were a student right now, I think I’d have to pick data visualization as my major. Data visualization is the craft of presenting complex data in a comprehensible, visual format. Aaron Koblin’s work is both playful and stunning. (Check out The Johnny Cash Project for a hypnotic taste of a crowd-sourced animation.) Ben Fry’s static illustrations are also worth a peek as is Tableau Software, a data visualization tool for businesses.
If you’ve got any good data viz links up your sleeve, send them my way! I cannot get enough of this stuff.
I went to WordCamp the WordPress conference on Saturday. WordPress powers this blog. Though blogging and technology are slightly off topic for me, I thought some of you might find some of this stuff interesting.
COPYRIGHT NORMS ARE CHANGING
WordCamp panelist Dave Taylor claims ownership of all comments folks leave on his blog. Here’s the text he posts on his site.
“Please note that by submitting a question or comment you’re agreeing to my terms of service, which are: you relinquish any subsequent rights of ownership to your material by submitting it on this site.”
He is taking his lead from FaceBook, the behemoth that claims ownership of all the content people upload to its network. Yes, he says he’s consulted with a lawyer. I think he’s being bold and that this is a fluid, potentially contentious area. It’ll be interesting to see how this stuff pans out, especially if he ever pens (or edits, I should say) a book based on his blog.
DESIGNERS KNOW WHERE IT’S AT
The folks who sat on the Design Panel – Jim Turner, Kevin Conboy and Kevin Menzie – recommended the following sites for when you’re in the need of a hit of visual inspiration. Dribbble, CSSRemix and ZooTool.
COMMENTS DESERVE MODERATION
The first session I attended, Creating a Blog Community, evolved (or devolved depending on your point of view) into a discussion on comment moderation. Most panelists seemed in favor of comment moderation. Fortunately, this blog doesn’t require much moderation (all you who comment here are kind). But if it did, I’d do so without hesitating. I believe it’s up to a blog’s author to set its tone. So does Doyle Albee whose rant about the comments area of my local paper’s website is worth a read.
My love affair with the The Sartorialist is over. I deleted photographer Scott Schuman’s blog from my blogroll for posting too many glamorized pictures of cigarettes being smoked and for aggressively moderating anti-smoking comments out of his conversation while allowing pro-”ciggy” voices to hold sway.
There are good arguments both for and against the use of destructive imagery in art (yes, I think glamorized images of smoking are destructive). John H. Richardson’s personal take in, “My History of Violence,” is great and though his focus is on violence his arguments apply to all images that depict self-harm or the harm of others. An excerpt:
When I was a cub reporter starting out at the Albuquerque Tribune, I found a report in the police blotter about a pair of 16-year-old lovers who gassed themselves in a car. I about choked on how great a story it was, did a little reporting, found out they did it in a closed garage and that their bodies were discovered by the very same parents who were trying to split them up. Then I pitched it to my editor. no way, he said. I said, “What? Are you crazy? It’s Romeo and fucking Juliet!” He gave me a sad look. “If I run this story, and give it big play and a nice layout, I guarantee you there will be a copycat suicide. Maybe a bunch of them. Do you want that on your conscience?”
I said, it’s not my responsibility what crazy people do. It’s the truth and that’s what I want to write, the truth. Would you tell Shakespeare to stick to comedies? Would you tell Tolstoy to write Peace and Peace?
…
Somehow, my editor managed to resist my blinding rhetorical onslaught. He didn’t run the piece. And I thought, this little burg is just too small-town for me, baby. These people don’t understand art. They don’t understand transgression. So I went to Hollywood. And just after I got there, some guy made a movie called The Program that had a scene where some kids lay down on a highway divider as a dare—and sure enough, there were copycats out in Pennsylvania who laid their dumb asses down on highway dividers and got squashed. And the studio said, hey, it’s not our responsibility what crazy people do. These people just don’t understand art…”
Scott Macaulay of Filmmaker magazine has written a bit about film marketing that’s worth a read. His thoughts apply to all largish creative endeavors, not just films. Here are a few excerpts from his current Editor’s Note:
“We are all telling you that you must define your audience, aggregate them, get their email addresses, build a marketing plan and conform to a new orthodoxy that believes that it’s up to the filmmaker to drive the new model that will see a film arrive to audiences’ home screens, desktops and cell phones.
Yes, all of that is actually important, but I’d urge filmmakers to do one thing before all of that: know your film. I mean, really know it. Understand what you have made on a deep level that derives from not only your intimacy with all that you have poured into it but from your sober reflection on how people you trust perceive it. Basic thoughts, yes, but they came to mind after I co-moderated the IFP Rough Cut Lab this past week..
As the Labs progressed throughout the week, I found myself resisting a ‘one size fits all’ pattern of advice, urging each filmmaker to discover what might make their film stand-out in the marketplace and hone a strategy that was unique to them. There was one film, a beautifully executed, small relationship drama, that probably shouldn’t be hyping themselves through endless email blasts; the film will get into a great festival and audiences should feel like they’ve discovered it on their own… On the other hand, there was a powerful social-issue film that needs to target and reach out to audiences who will debate the movie’s topical concerns after the credits roll. Each of these filmmakers shouldn’t try to shoehorn their film into some new conventional wisdom. In other words, nobody knows anything – except, if he or she is very lucky, the filmmaker…”
There’s a nice little community of encaustic painters forming on twitter. I joined back in January, totally skeptical, and am now totally hooked. You can find me there @LauraLovesLux & if you’re a painter or a beekeeper or just plain interesting, I’d be delighted to follow you. I like using it as a search engine (smarter, wittier than Google). It’s part oracle, part entertainment broadcast. The term “micro-blogging” doesn’t do it justice. You’ve got to invest some time, a few hours spread over a week or two, before the magic unfolds.
Lisa Sisley-Blinn has done the encaustic world a kindness by compiling a list of artists who tweet. (Thank you, Lisa!) Her blog’s worth checking out too. As is Lorraine Glessner’s who also tweets.
P.S. Bee people to follow… @AFBR (Florida beekeeper, posts photos of bee removals) and @bug_girl (cool links plus entomological snark).
It’s been a computery few weeks! I’ve been hard at work updating my website. The most exciting addition, I think, is a new gallery labeled “current” at left with 21 new paintings for you to peruse. You’re also invited to check out my new homepage (the image changes whenever you reload) and info about workshops. Phew!
Thanks to my pixel partner, amstec, for so gracefully keeping me in the 21st Century.
Here’s something I thought you might find helpful. It’s a blog assessment flow chart courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. It outlines a simple protocol for handling feedback – both positive and negative – comin’ atcha from the web. I love how it turns a project rife with emotion & complication (managing the online reputation of a business or idea) into a set of clear, tidy actions.
Here’s something fun and cool for those of you into personality quizzes and such. It’s a blog-type analyzer! Insert a URL and it spits out a type. It took about seven seconds to pop this out about mine:
ESTP – The Doers
The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.
The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.
One of my favorite art blogs is actually a politics blog. It’s Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish published by the Atlantic. He has an eye for the striking & offbeat and regularly posts art-related stuff under the heading “mental health break.”
