Hard to believe that 2014 is almost over and that I have continued blogging without running away in frustration. Can you believe that I am beginning to understand some of it? To help me and my kind tech support know what still needs to be done, I think I have to write some things down and record them in digital stone.

Why am I blogging?

Sometimes I need to remind myself why I am doing this. I wanted a relatively easy way to create an artist website for myself so i could also maintain and update it by myself. Why not just a static website? If nothing every changes on it, would people go back and take a second or third look? A blog with updates is constantly changing. Also some people want to know more about an artist’s world with a peek into how our minds work. I also want people to know about some of the amazing work that other people do — people who are not necessarily in the headlines or art magazines but do amazing work. It is also a way for me to be accountable to someone or something about doing the work and making art. Nobody ever mentioned how hard it is to continue making art after leaving the incubator of art school when life gets in the way. And I am verbal as well as visual. I like to be able to babble on about things that are happening in my life and whatever interests me right now.

If this blog exceeded my wildest dreams, what would happen?

Wildest dreams or practically speaking? Hmmm, would I like a deal for a movie or a book? No,  that’s been done before by many other bloggers. Would I complain if I was asked? No, but I would be scared stiff. Daydreams turned reality? Well, I think I wouldn’t mind if a commercial website asked me to report on gallery shows and other events around town. I would not say no if a gallery saw my work here and asked me to be in one of their shows without charging me for the privilege to do so. (Not limited to Japan.) Who knows? Maybe one of my friends who I have featured here could get an offer to go on an international tour or get offers for their artwork. More practically speaking, I need to add a portfolio page with galleries of some work. I also need to do at least a monthly update and photo of what I am working on to keep me honest. I would also like to do a monthly collage shot comparing two things or two artists, because my mind works that way. In the next few months, I want to go through my old posts and insert a featured image, add a READ MORE link after the image, and generally clean things up a bit. (All those featured images will have to be manually uploaded to my .com version of this blog. I am doing two of them to compare the features of the two WordPress services available.) I want to remember to add descriptions to provide metadata for each photo that I upload here and maybe do that for all of the photos I have uploaded so far by the end of next year. (I am a realist.) I would like to set aside an hour each week to read posts by the bloggers that I am following or by friends who blog with other platforms. They have been providing me with a lot of assistance, so the least I can do is offer some feedback in return, right? I need to remember to post every week, even after my online blogging courses have ended. I think it is possible if I keep working hard to increase my followers by at least 10%. And I need to remember that I have to spend time in the studio away from the blog, since the blog’s original and main purpose is to promote my drawings. Into my life a little rain shall fall and a little sun shall shine, right?