day 3 of #smallwebjuly
Day 3!
Feeling pumped that other people are in on this too! I would have stuck with it on my own, but I do well with accountability and I love reading about how others approached this and made it appropriate for their own lives/interests.
A concrete goal has emerged from the less specific "more building/less scrolling" general goal: moving my art business from being centered around Instagram to fully on its own, handmade website. I want to create an RSS feed for those who don't care to subscribe to the newsletter, and a resource page for other artists who want to build websites and don't know where to start.
This goal came from scrolling Pinterest last month and seeing an extremely detailed linocut of Southern vernacular architecture. That's my niche! I was excited that someone else was excited about the same things, and they were really good - even though it literally looked exactly in my style, which was weird. And it was almost... too good for a medium that has so much character because mistakes can't be fixed and end up being part of the final piece. When I saw it was AI my heart sank. It was slightly off, but not like pieces I saw a few months ago. It was work clearly based on my own, spat back out at me on the corporate web.
After a few days of existential angst (I should sell my presses and give up everything!!!!! become a nurse!?) I realized I would have to get off the corporate web as a consumer (in order to not be fed slop) and as an artist (willingly giving my art to Meta to turn into soup). I don't want to be a consumer of the internet, I want to be a contributor. A builder.
The AI slop being as convincing as it was sent me in the shop to set some type (image mirrored here , type is always reversed):
printed with violet ink here, with some yummy Cooper Black in the open drawer:
I'll add some linocut to this page to jazz it up a bit. But then what? I can't put it on Instagram. I need to reboot my portfolio page, make it easy to update, easy to follow, and fun. I just moved to a new city and took the first teaching job in which I don't require additional income by selling my work, teaching classes, and doing art markets. I am no longer dependent on appealing to any algorithm, which is a privilege. With all the changes in my own life, there's no need for me sell out my own energetic sovereignty to platforms.
So! Onto learning 11ty to get my blog going for the RSS component of my new site. Vaettr has generously helped me out with some resources to get me comfortable with working in the terminal.
new additions to my link bucket:
In an era of slop / make aalittle thing out of clay by Everest Pipkin via sweetfish.site Jenn Schiffer's entire website: blog, 8bit art maker, candles, the whole damn thing
Ok that's it! I still want to scroll dumb websites but I won't! (just a lil bit). Walks, puzzles, drawing with acrylic markers, and spending time in the 32-bit Cafe forum are helping.