There are many things I wish would've went differently so far in 2021. It appears there's a lot less that I can control these days than I thought, and my confidence is often misguided.
My commitment to Art in 2021 has humbled me greatly (positively and negatively), but it has also brought out the best in me. It has opened my eyes to my creative flaws and celebrated my content in diverse ways. It has been an obsession for me, but it has also kept my mind off the realities of this stressful time.
I may not be professionally successful right now, but I am successfully productive. And I have a deep-seeded belief that as long as I keep doing what I'm doing, I'll get the results I'm after.
For better or for worse, if you marry yourself to the path, you are destined for its just deserts.
If there's one area of my life that I'm going to take deep pride in so far this year, it's following through with my development of my digital art gallery and sharing my progress with the world through my social channels and blogs and portfolio site.
One hundred works down, five hundred to go. No filters. No remixes. The bare, beautiful, and brutal truth of my art, exposed to all.
I've shared twice a day, Monday through Saturday in the AM and the PM. I've published and shared weekly summaries every Sunday. I've tried very hard to maintain a consistent broadcast schedule, and that has forced me to spend a lot of personal energy and focus on development of content and digital experiences.
As such, I haven't had much time for development of new paintings or other content, but I have been generating hundreds of remixes of my pieces as well as a steady stream of blogs and stories. I'm able to put a little bit of time into my primary book projects for 2021 - "Obscurious X" and "Echoprism Vol 2" - but the production schedule has really taken whatever free time I have.
I guess I should be thankful that I have the art as my obsession, because the job hunt would otherwise drive me crazy. Seriously. It has not been fun, not been hopeful, not been complimentary. It has been a dehumanizing process that has made me feel less useful and valuable than I ever have in my life.
Art is my great escape, and I'm thankful for my exoteric outlets these days.
Each Serenity Gallery art experience build and share takes 1-2 hours - from content development like additional remixes or on-page content like poetry, to page builds and share calendar updates. An amazing amount of visual resizing needs to be done for different social platforms, and partially done so I can maintain a decent SEO standing and fast user experience.
User experience and content efficiency are really important to me. With that in mind, many of my pieces here have been loaded with VERY low quality imagery. The highest quality versions of my #yearofSerenity gallery pieces can be found at DeviantArt. I know I have a lot of content, and it's critical to me that users find their way through my gallery with ease and interest.
By that math, I've already spent 100-200 hours of 2021 on creating and sharing my #yearofSerenity. Extrapolated, 600 - 1200 hours of 2021 on creating and sharing my #yearofSerenity.
Crazy? Maybe.
Obsessive? Perhaps.
Valuable? Completely.
The legacy experience that I'm building is mostly for me, so I have a visual legacy of the works I've accomplished, but it's also for my audience, for people that consider themselves fans of my creations. I've tried to build rich, expansive experiences that touch an observer on various levels -- through writing, through texture, through topic or feature - while balancing user and content experience. When it comes to blogs, I don't worry about "writing long form" content. The stories I tell are more important than prescribed or proper length.
True art has no handbook, no guidebook, only recommendations on how to navigate and burn trails into your creative pavement.
It's hard to balance what I know is right for marketing and experience development with what I am trying to do as an artist with a legacy to create and communicate. I have a degree in English and Humanistic Studies, and my interests are broad and bountiful. This site is a nexus of my vibrant experiences, creative collections, wild stances, and troubled times.
One hundred works down, five hundred to go. No filters. No remixes. The bare, beautiful, and brutal truth of my art, exposed to all.
I've shared twice a day, Monday through Saturday in the AM and the PM. I've published and shared weekly summaries every Sunday. I've tried very hard to maintain a consistent broadcast schedule, and that has forced me to spend a lot of personal energy and focus on development of content and digital experiences.
As such, I haven't had much time for development of new paintings or other content, but I have been generating hundreds of remixes of my pieces as well as a steady stream of blogs and stories. I'm able to put a little bit of time into my primary book projects for 2021 - "Obscurious X" and "Echoprism Vol 2" - but the production schedule has really taken whatever free time I have.
I guess I should be thankful that I have the art as my obsession, because the job hunt would otherwise drive me crazy. Seriously. It has not been fun, not been hopeful, not been complimentary. It has been a dehumanizing process that has made me feel less useful and valuable than I ever have in my life.
Art is my great escape, and I'm thankful for my exoteric outlets these days.
Each Serenity Gallery art experience build and share takes 1-2 hours - from content development like additional remixes or on-page content like poetry, to page builds and share calendar updates. An amazing amount of visual resizing needs to be done for different social platforms, and partially done so I can maintain a decent SEO standing and fast user experience.
User experience and content efficiency are really important to me. With that in mind, many of my pieces here have been loaded with VERY low quality imagery. The highest quality versions of my #yearofSerenity gallery pieces can be found at DeviantArt. I know I have a lot of content, and it's critical to me that users find their way through my gallery with ease and interest.
By that math, I've already spent 100-200 hours of 2021 on creating and sharing my #yearofSerenity. Extrapolated, 600 - 1200 hours of 2021 on creating and sharing my #yearofSerenity.
Crazy? Maybe.
Obsessive? Perhaps.
Valuable? Completely.
The legacy experience that I'm building is mostly for me, so I have a visual legacy of the works I've accomplished, but it's also for my audience, for people that consider themselves fans of my creations. I've tried to build rich, expansive experiences that touch an observer on various levels -- through writing, through texture, through topic or feature - while balancing user and content experience. When it comes to blogs, I don't worry about "writing long form" content. The stories I tell are more important than prescribed or proper length.
True art has no handbook, no guidebook, only recommendations on how to navigate and burn trails into your creative pavement.
It's hard to balance what I know is right for marketing and experience development with what I am trying to do as an artist with a legacy to create and communicate. I have a degree in English and Humanistic Studies, and my interests are broad and bountiful. This site is a nexus of my vibrant experiences, creative collections, wild stances, and troubled times.
FEATURED RELEASE:
ECHOPRISM
My Serenity Gallery is a reflection of all of those things, given structure, context, personality, and purpose.
My method has me sharing a piece from "Echoprism Vol 1" and "Echoprism Vol 2" every day. Echoprism Vol 1 covers my first 300 pieces; Echoprism Vol 2 covers pieces 301 - 600. In 2019, I underwent a major project to inventory all of my works, and I didn't track that inventory in any logical or temporal fashion. The filling of slots 1-600 was completely random, and I continue to build past that number with new creations to this day, with the eventual intention of putting out a "Volume 3" when I've amassed another 300 pieces to fill another gallery book.
The main point: there was no logic to the order of how my gallery was built. I grabbed pieces from stacks, numbered them, and dropped that info into an Excel spreadsheet, which I then use to generate labels and do all sorts of other cool stuff. The assembly of the Serenity Gallery was mostly random, unless I intentionally grouped octave pieces together or shifted pieces in or out of the Gallery.
Thus, pieces from the first part of the gallery are woven in with pieces at the last part of the gallery. It has been fun to watch the synchronicity of completely random posts associated together on the same day of posting. Like a double-helix 300 loops long, I'm painting an artistic legacy throughout 2021 that will stand for years to come.
One major highlight was my piece "Painted Reflection X" sharing on the day of my Dad's passing. Another crazy synchronicity in my world, the piece was randomly placed on that day as part of my content calendar, and perfectly reflects one of the darkest days of my history.
The first hundred shares of my Serenity Gallery have been a vibrant adventure in 2021. I can't wait to see what unique experiences and synchronicities the next hundred hold.
If you've missed any of my weekly updates blogs, be sure you're subscribed to my Artrovert blog. You can do that through the interface at the end of this blog. Remember to check your email to validate your subscription! Thank you very much for participating in and engaging with my #yearofSerenity!