As I have been spending the majority of my time working on my wife’s website, and getting shows put up and taken down at work, this poor, sad, little site has been painfully adrift. I think I just got to the point that I wouldn’t post because there was too much pressure built up. The holiday break is coming up and my wife’s site is running smoothly (as far as I know), so I’m buckling down for a redesign and using the typical new-years-resolution to recommit myself to doing more thoughtful writing. Ah who am I kidding. I’ll just be happy to do some writing.

Lately I’ve been ODing on the glut of “art blogs” out there, and frankly, I can’t take much more. If art blogs were food, I’d be malnourished and diabetic. They all seem to feed on/circulate the same sugary politics and gossip while jealously worshipping anyone who got an Arts Journal blogging gig. Given, there are a few out there that are earnestly trying to talk about art and what that could mean, but they are few and far between. The saddest part is that the most stagnant art blogs are written by artists. I would expect that from trained art historians who worry themselves with identifying existing and established trends and styles, but not from artists.

The beauty of blogging is that it’s typically done for free. That lifts the restraints of writing about safe art, safe shows, and safe topics. It allows the writer to riff without a net. The writing can be more personal. Art can be a very personal thing, and art journalism can just be too academic. Musing is fully allowed because there is no sponsor or patron who has the final call on whether it prints or not. I would prefer to read art writing that tries something different and fails rather than simply failing because it takes the path-most-traveled.

Now that I’ve set up myself for a fall, I’ll disappear until I relaunch the site. Stay tuned. And thanks for reading. Both of you.