A Tour of the Site Upgrades

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A couple of weeks ago I promised that “next week” I’d be giving a tour of the changes to this site. Well, “next week” came and went—and then some—without much web-touristic joy. I suppose late is better than never. In any case here’s the gist of this post: I’ve changed the home page and added a few new sections: portfolio, texts, and info. I’ve also added site-wide navigation, and a site map. This may not seem like a lot, but hiding inside those two short sentences are over fifty pages of new content, and at least two hundred images. As always, you’re free to explore this new stuff on your own, or you can read further to find out more before you take the plunge.

Home Page

I’ve integrated the visual design of the blog/journal, and reduced the front page to a single image, a navigation bar, a blurb about me and my artwork, and links to the five most recent posts in my journal.

Portfolio

The porfolio is a migration of the web galleries from my old site (spiraldragon.com) plus the addition of a few things that weren’t there before. There is an artist statement, as well as very brief writeups about each body of work. For more extensive descriptions of the work, you’ll have to look at the texts.

Texts

So far there are two texts here. They’re what kept me busy for the better part of April through September 2006.

One text, 8 Bodies in 12 Years: Images and Sculptures 1994-2006 is a retrospective portfolio of my artistic output of the period. It goes into detail about my motivations and other issues in making each distinct body of work. Included are early acrylic-on-panel paintings, digital work, and my painted carvings, painted wooden assemblages, and freestanding unpainted wooden scupltures. There are also a number of images of source drawings and work-in-progress. This text started out as an illustrated appendix to the the other text: 13 1/2 Essays on Practice

As its title implies, 13 1/2 Essays on Practice is a collection of essays I wrote about my art work and practice. If you’ve ever wondered what goes on in an artists head (mine, anyway), this is where to look. I cover a wide variety of topics ranging from imagery and inspiration, a number of issues in digital practices, and a whole bunch of other things. But the Abstract (that’s a summary, for you non-academic folks) covers it pretty well, and the Introduction takes care of the rest.

I’ve tried to write both texts with a minimum of jargon, and the writing is very similar in style to my blog posts. I wouldn’t try to read it all at one sitting, but also be aware that you don’t have to read it in sequential order. I’ve put the essays into an order that makes sense to me, but in general it’s not necessary to have read “earlier” essays to be able to understand the “later” ones. You can pick and choose topics that interest you without losing too much continuity.

Info

This is where the information about me and my site lives: my bio, curriculum vitae, some background about this journal, technical details about how this site is put together, and a copyright notice.

Site Map

The Site Map should be self-explanatory. If not, read the introductory explanation on its page.

Feeds

For those of you with RSS readers, rather than checking the site obsessively for updates or waiting for me to email you about new content, you can simply point your feed reader (or feed-compatible browser) to the approriate place:

Note as well that I’ve change from an excerpt-only feed to a full-text feed, so you never have to leave the comfort of your feed reader. Unless you want to.

Eye Candy

I’ve been going through all of the old posts that have photos, art, or other images, and have coded in a thumbnail icon. You’ll see this icon in the post summaries.

Possibly Related

At the bottom of each journal entry there a list of posts that might be related to the one you’re reading. I’m not sure how much value this has for regular readers, but if you’re new around these parts, this feature might show you something interesting to read.

What All This Means

What this means for you, as readers, is that things should generally be easier to find, and that you don’t have go to multiple sites to find—or not find—specific information about me and my work. Whereas previously it was necessary to look here to find out what I was up to (via this journal) and on spiraldragon.com to find somewhat out-of-date information about my art practice, you can find everything here, under one roof. And as of today, it’s all up-to-date. There are a few things I haven’t brought over, and am as yet undecided about: the Studio Visit section of the galleries, and a couple of cheesy Flash animation experiments.

Having completed these updates also means that I can spend less time coding, so I’ll probably be posting here more often. My goal is to post at least once a week, but I’m not going to make any promises. After all, the call of studio is getting louder.

Upcoming Changes

I’m not completely done with the site changes. Here’s a list of what’s in the works:

Reporting Problems and Bugs

If you encounter any bugs, problems, broken links or anything similar on any of the new pages. Or any of the old pages, for that matter, please report them here.