Thursday, January 4, 2007

Debt: Visually

I remember reading an article in HOW about keeping an illustration journal (which I did for all of a week). One of the suggestions was to draw everything you own as a way to drum up creativity.

While blog surfing, I came across Kate Bingaman's Obsessive Consumption (also mentioned in HOW here) and was reminded of that article...and how much Dwight thought the idea was an interesting way to become intimate with your own bad spending habits. It really became a commentary on consumerism in America - which tends to be a hot topic around our house and in his classroom.

*Dwight I thought you'd like this as she had a studio in Lincoln while getting her grad degree*

I admire Kate Bingaman, for having the guts to embrace her spending and turn it into art - including the gut-wrenching credit card statement. Money and personal debt represented visually for everyone to see (I feel fat and naked just thinking about it). She is able to transform the sick feeling debt can produce in the pit of the stomach into something to be admired, talked about and, in the end, accepted and possibly resolved.

Maybe it's time to start back up with that journal.

In a separate but related thought - thru Kate's site I came across etsy.com. I have a hang-up when it comes to art - unless it's a favorite artist of mine like David Goines - I try to only display signed prints (it's amazing how many wonderful artists live in Midcoast Maine*) and original art. That being said...we are a young family with a 3 month old which leaves little money to spend on art by known artists (or any artist for that matter). This is where a site like etsy (or Kate's for that matter) can be very useful. Affordable and wonderful original art.

*Anthony Venti, Paul Caponigro, Alan Magee, Jamie Wyeth and Andrew Wyeth (and father/grandfather NC)

Ringing in the New Year...

Thanks Lichen...looks like we know now who is the piggy 'round these parts (and don't you forget it)! For New Year's, Dwight and I went down to Portland to visit friends for gobs and gobs of sushi, sake and well, more sushi of course. Needless to say, I had a sushi hangover the next day - could have also been all the red wine before and after dinner...weeeee.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

The Perfect Friend?

As a communications professional (one of my many hats) I have become fascinated with the world of blogging as a viable marketing/pr strategy - personally and professionally. It's not necessarily the "pay per post" game (which very closely mirrors the online porn industry) that many bloggers play that impresses me but rather the ebb and flow of product/service/company/personality popularity that is completely controlled by the online community. Tho my site has no PR at all - I still like to think that sometimes my links or entries can matter and that somewhere, someone might actually be reading my blog; taking an interest in what I might find amusing that day. In order to increase the popularity of this blog...I have been reading up on it.

All very interesting.
Using blogs for personal marketing
Making your blog popular through content
A Blogger's Big-Fish Fantasy
Making your blog popular

I am also truly in awe of how anyone with a computer and brain and a bit of perserverace can not only become a known entity online but become part of an entirely new peer group in a short amount of time. I have always been a very social person, however, my social circle has generally been limited to the size of the area in which I live. I am currently living in Maine, therefore, my circle can only be so large - but now, with the Internet being an extension of my personality - my peer circle can be as large as I want it - and as deep. I can have an entirely new peer group for as many interests as I like - not that I have the time to actually do this...but it could happen.

Blogging, online forums etc, in theory, could not only allow me to fill the void rural Maine might not be able to fill but I can actively monitor how involved I would like to be in a particularly chosen peer group. It can be the perfect friendship in a sense - as deep or shallow as you choose it to be. Unless, of course, all you want is to go have a beer...

Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog

The abstract goes on to say..."Many bloggers see blogging as a way of developing relationships, via linking back, with an online community: “the linking that happens through blogging creates the connections that bind us”(Hourihan, 2002). They also manage those relationships through both linking and commentary, which become forms of social control, signs of approval, acceptance, value. For example, LiveJournal’s “friends” feature allows bloggers to link to other blogs and allow differential access to their own blog. Blood notes that bloggers “position themselves” in the community of bloggers, indicating through their links “the tribe to which they wish to belong” (2000). Both linking and commentary create the hierarchy that structures the social world of blogs, leading to the A-list celebrities and the thousands of others, as well as to multiple complexly linked micro-communities. Clark calls the blogosphere a “culture of upward mobility” based in the desire for recognition and approval (2002). "

I really am enjoying the blog the above article came from...makes for great conversation.