I will say this again-

There is no “too technical,” only “not artistic enough.”

So last year, this site more than doubled in traffic. Not a bad result from flirting reluctantly with self promotion – handing out maybe 200 business cards since the end of October 2010. This year, goals are explicit, higher and pursued with intent. My public presence now includes:

• This site with formal collections of finished artwork.  The visual component will be fairly static.   Text, in the form of blog posts and information pages, will be frequent and more importantly, useful.  Expect equipment and technique reviews from my unique standpoint, and I plan to add a good bibliography in the next few days.
• My new, public Facebook page will have my most up to date work, often in a raw, lightly edited state.  What was once accessible to a select group of artists and friends will be public.  Please hit “like” and “share” it with your friends, too.
• My work will be represented on one more site, but that’s a bit down the line and somewhat hush hush.
• My twitter feed collects much of the above and serves as an overall RSS feed.  I still need to figure out a proper flow for these microblog links – I want to inform, not spam.  It should be manageable, but if you find a flood, let me know.

And that pretty much covers the online stuff only.  Other things are in the works – and that doesn’t include the real work : the art.

2011 was a mixed bag – everything about it could be described as half-hearted – and yet, still a success.  Let’s see what happens with some intent behind it.

However, my 2nd selection aside I couldn’t really bear using such an old piece – I’ve gotten better since, but I had my reasons for doing what I did – and since the judging and additional curating is done, I uploaded what was going to be my submission for this year to my profile; Quiptych. It also forms the centerpiece of my “cohesive” printed art portfolio, arrange just so to use the problem of vertical pieces in an horziontal presentation book to my advantage.

Now, finally, to get some real writing done.

To be accurate, they put a 19 year old me in their collection.  It’s particularly nice to be in a set with my buddy Russell Frederick. I had little expectation for a 14 year old piece to be selected in an emerging art competition in 2011, but there you go.  True, to me it’s like the film just came back from the developer – yeah, I made some 5×7 prints a decade ago, but I never really worked the negative.  It really is best described as 1997/2011.

Now, with that in mind, I’m not strongly attached to this piece.  So lets toss it aside – it was made 14 years ago; my ego isn’t attached to it – if it were, I’d have to think I hadn’t gotten any better since.  What’s nice about this collection is that while I don’t like every piece, they are photographer’s photographers: I don’t know most of these people’s work,  but I’d recognize them as photographers and not the crap that floats to the top.  I’m glad a few – and only a few – of these people made it into the top 150, because on the whole, the photography selections were terrible.  I could go point by point, case by case, but I don’t think I can bring myself to do it.  I did walk a dear friend through the postcard display at Rush Gallery this past week and explained either in terms of composition, last year’s selections, historical pieces, and to a lesser (if any) degree, technique.  (That last point may be shocking to those who think me as “technical.”  For another post.)  I swear I used several of the selections as examples to teach people what not to do.  This also applies to many of the online curators/live shows.  Whatever.  I hope some of the selectees make good in the market so I can critique the pieces as they deserve.

Anyway, congrats to 19 year old Adam, you don’t suck as much as I thought.

Yay.

[3:02am EDIT: fixed. WordPress might have a similar hole. need to check.]