so little time

Well, I'm just 7 or so weeks away from being done with the first half of my first year of teaching. I'm sure that could have been said with less than half that many words. But anyway... I've got a little more time than usual tonight, since baby Daniel is sleeping early for some reason, so I'm going through my websites and old videos and everything. The main thing I'm realizing is that my life has changed so dramatically. When I look at my websites and all the things I used to put time into, it feels so still and silent... like my life used to be this really quiet period of waiting. I didn't realize I was waiting... but it really was like my life was just sitting there, waiting for this era that I'm in now. I'm so busy now that I can't take time to make art... or even think about art, really. I know it will be different once the first year is done, but it is SO difficult sometimes. The schedule I'm on is just crazy, and I am just not a very organized person. So many people are relying on me, and I feel like people are constantly judging my performance.... and the truth is that they are. Being a teacher is a very public role, and your performance is under constant scrutiny by principals, other teachers, people at central office, mothers, and even the kids. I've never experienced anything like this at all. My hope is simply that time will make it easier. I can't wait until I can come home and ACTUALLY relax... not just sit and worry until it's time to go in again.

Bona Fide Art Teacher

Where does that "Bona Fide" term come from anyway? I'll have to google that sometime. Anyway, just an update to say that I'm officially an elementary school art teacher now. It's amazing how it all happened, but it's a long story. It's enough to say that things have worked out in an incredible way for me, and I'm having trouble keeping up with all the change. It seems like forever that I've been in a limbo between being a student and being an adult. Now, very suddenly, over the course of just a few months, I have my career and I'm a father. I think I'm taking to the role nicely... but sometimes I do miss the time to do my creative loafing, surfing, blogging, etc.

More later.

New Dad on the scene

I realize that there are way too many blogs out there in which people simply talk about their kids... but hey, I've got to at least MENTION that I just became a father! My son, Daniel, was born on June 25th... and I am LOVING getting to know him.

Youtube kills category browsing

Youtube is adding a lot in the way of features lately. Its "test tube" section with the Adobe "Remixer" is a good enhancement (though it would be better if you could remix videos uploaded by other users). But one change they just made is very troubling. In fact, it has ruined Youtube for me.

For a while now, it has been my habit to visit Youtube and view recent, popular videos in the "News & Politics" category. Youtube gave me the ability to browse videos in each category by organizing them by "most recent" "top rated", etc. I could further organize the results by using the buttons for "today", "this week", "this month", or "all time".

The latest change in Youtube's interface has disabled the ability to browse videos by category. Sure, the "Category" tab is still at the top, but now the page for each category (example) only shows "featured" videos, which have been selected by Youtube editors. There is a small "see more" link at the bottom of the page, but when clicked, it simply reloads the same page! Now it is impossible to find popular or recent videos in any category. You can only see the videos Youtube editors have selected!

This is an awful change that severely inhibits the ability to find relevant videos on the site. It also makes it very difficult for up-and-coming content creators to have their work seen, since only "featured" videos can be seen in each category. I am afraid it may part of an effort to "pretty up" the site, since it is now to be featured on apple tv, etc. But this change has made the site useless for me. Unless they bring back the ability to browse videos by category, Youtube is just ruined.

Too many of us...

Are there MILLIONS of artworks on Deviantart.com? I sometimes find myself getting depressed about the meaning of making an artwork in a world where we are overrun with countless images... almost all of them just trying to sell us something... In such a world, it becomes literally impossible for any artist to make any kind of image that could have any kind of impact on society at all... or even be noticed.

When I look through DA, perusing the millions of heartfelt artworks of so many, many artists, I think each one deserves to be looked at and contemplated... Yes, there is a lot of "bad" work here... but even that work deserves to be looked at and taken in. There is merit in even the worst artwork. But there is not time. There is so much more art than there is time to look at art.

So I rush by, clicking and clicking, stopping only when something really catches my eye... having to ignore so many others. And I only peruse artworks because I am an artist myself. People who aren't artists would never come to DA... much less go to a gallery and really look. The TV shows and commercials give them plenty of imagery, and they can't be convinced that art would do them any good at all. There was a time when art was an important part of society. Now it seems like its nothing more than an empty caricature of what it used to be.

Art has been paralyzed by commercialism... What can we possibly do about that?

A new Video (June 7)

A strange new attempt to be creative at this 3rd shift job of mine....

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Well, I FINALLY figured out how to get the rss feed from my blog into my webpage... I had to use this gadget someone wrote to do it. So now I can finally just post to this blog instead of adding entries to my website. Googlepages is great because it's free... but it could use some work. Anyway, hopefully some better posts are on the way, since I'll get more visibility by having the posts in multiple places.