Casey KlahnOne year of blogging is a cause for celebration. And reflection. And I also think it's a good time for visualizing the next year.
Thoughts about this blog:
The Colorist has logged about 295 posts in the last 364 days. During that time, it has grown and defined itself to be a good quality blog for art content, my personal views, and the broader ideas of colorist art. The first description of The Colorist went something like, "A newsletter for patrons of colorist art, without the artspeak".
Now, the banner reads, "New School Color - Casey Klahn". The subject tags immediately below say, "Abstract Expressionism, Art Criticism, Artists, Colorist Art, Drawing, History, Impressionism, Modern Art, Painting, Pastel, Post Impressionism".
The readership here, though fairly modest in quantity, do boast a high I.Q. I am grateful for you and for your willingness to learn and observe colorist art, art topics in general and my own artwork in particular.
On a good day, I may see 100 - 125 pageloads, but an average of the year is @ 65. Visitor counts are about 37 - 65 per day. I have evidence of more readership that Statcounter doesn't pick up, so I would say to those looking here trying to learn about successful blogging, don't trust the stats too closely. There are hidden referrers and filters involved. If you need big stats, you will have to post daily. That isn't my goal, and also not a realistic expectation for a Mr. Mom to young kids.
How am I stacking up to my self-established goals here? I think I'll award myself an A+. The resolved commitment to post regularly, and the expansion of my own artistic statement are probably the best highlights of the past year. Equal to that is the fellowship with like-minded art lovers. The readership here is probably half artists and the other half are not, but in many ways the art lover is the equal to the artist in making art live. Rothko has said that his art requires the spectator, and I hope that idea will be a bigger part of his legacy. It's a much better idea than Warhol's pull-quote about "fifteen minutes of fame," IMHO.
If you follow The Colorist closely, you know that my studio has been out of action for the better part of the past year. I am just now getting my new free-standing studio in shape. It has been a challenge to keep floating along on few postings of my own artworks. I see that my Label of "My Artwork" has been used 51 times, but I estimate that unique artwork postings only number about 30 or so. Drawings probably number about 20 (my PC is slow enough that I won't take the time now to count them all).
We are photo poor here at the Klahn studio, but during the past year I did manage to sell more art (dollar-wise) than ever before. I put it that way because my earlier days of selling art involved more pieces sold at lesser prices. I usually have about 50 pastels framed and ready to sell, but I don't get them all recorded properly. However, improvement in that department is happening, too.
One year ago I knew that my studio would be inactive while I dismantled the old and worked on the new. I had a feeling that it would be a slow process, and so I set this as a year of growth in other directions. Through the venue of this blog, my knowledge of art history and also of contemporary art has increased. My ability to define my own art in words has increased many, many times over. Now my new studio is almost ready to be productive, and that feels like book-ends to this past year.
As far as the goals for The Colorist are concerned, my desire has been to not be too focused on myself (Protestant values in action), but to have an outlet for evolving my written statement. The term "colorist art" is vague, and a perfect direction for an artist to grow new and unique work. Have I defined colorism yet? No. But I think I'm moving in the right direction. Alyson Stanfield has gently challenged me to write my "Colorist Manifesto", and she is completely right that there is room for more understanding of this contemporary art phenomenon.
On my goal list is to write the Wikipedia entry on new colorist art. The one there now on the subject: Colorist, while reasonably okay, is still lacking a good understanding of this movement. After that, the manifesto should be written. This blog's interaction with all of you has given me direction as far as the general and specific understanding of color and art. It won't be academic writing, but it will add at least one more kernel of insight into new color art.
It looks like I'll have to finish this thread with another post or two. I want to cover blogging in general and the future of The Colorist.
Thoughts about this blog:
The Colorist has logged about 295 posts in the last 364 days. During that time, it has grown and defined itself to be a good quality blog for art content, my personal views, and the broader ideas of colorist art. The first description of The Colorist went something like, "A newsletter for patrons of colorist art, without the artspeak".
Now, the banner reads, "New School Color - Casey Klahn". The subject tags immediately below say, "Abstract Expressionism, Art Criticism, Artists, Colorist Art, Drawing, History, Impressionism, Modern Art, Painting, Pastel, Post Impressionism".
The readership here, though fairly modest in quantity, do boast a high I.Q. I am grateful for you and for your willingness to learn and observe colorist art, art topics in general and my own artwork in particular.
On a good day, I may see 100 - 125 pageloads, but an average of the year is @ 65. Visitor counts are about 37 - 65 per day. I have evidence of more readership that Statcounter doesn't pick up, so I would say to those looking here trying to learn about successful blogging, don't trust the stats too closely. There are hidden referrers and filters involved. If you need big stats, you will have to post daily. That isn't my goal, and also not a realistic expectation for a Mr. Mom to young kids.
How am I stacking up to my self-established goals here? I think I'll award myself an A+. The resolved commitment to post regularly, and the expansion of my own artistic statement are probably the best highlights of the past year. Equal to that is the fellowship with like-minded art lovers. The readership here is probably half artists and the other half are not, but in many ways the art lover is the equal to the artist in making art live. Rothko has said that his art requires the spectator, and I hope that idea will be a bigger part of his legacy. It's a much better idea than Warhol's pull-quote about "fifteen minutes of fame," IMHO.
If you follow The Colorist closely, you know that my studio has been out of action for the better part of the past year. I am just now getting my new free-standing studio in shape. It has been a challenge to keep floating along on few postings of my own artworks. I see that my Label of "My Artwork" has been used 51 times, but I estimate that unique artwork postings only number about 30 or so. Drawings probably number about 20 (my PC is slow enough that I won't take the time now to count them all).
We are photo poor here at the Klahn studio, but during the past year I did manage to sell more art (dollar-wise) than ever before. I put it that way because my earlier days of selling art involved more pieces sold at lesser prices. I usually have about 50 pastels framed and ready to sell, but I don't get them all recorded properly. However, improvement in that department is happening, too.
One year ago I knew that my studio would be inactive while I dismantled the old and worked on the new. I had a feeling that it would be a slow process, and so I set this as a year of growth in other directions. Through the venue of this blog, my knowledge of art history and also of contemporary art has increased. My ability to define my own art in words has increased many, many times over. Now my new studio is almost ready to be productive, and that feels like book-ends to this past year.
As far as the goals for The Colorist are concerned, my desire has been to not be too focused on myself (Protestant values in action), but to have an outlet for evolving my written statement. The term "colorist art" is vague, and a perfect direction for an artist to grow new and unique work. Have I defined colorism yet? No. But I think I'm moving in the right direction. Alyson Stanfield has gently challenged me to write my "Colorist Manifesto", and she is completely right that there is room for more understanding of this contemporary art phenomenon.
On my goal list is to write the Wikipedia entry on new colorist art. The one there now on the subject: Colorist, while reasonably okay, is still lacking a good understanding of this movement. After that, the manifesto should be written. This blog's interaction with all of you has given me direction as far as the general and specific understanding of color and art. It won't be academic writing, but it will add at least one more kernel of insight into new color art.
It looks like I'll have to finish this thread with another post or two. I want to cover blogging in general and the future of The Colorist.
Posts
4 comments:
Nice post Casey.
Thanks, Katherine.
Casey, congratulations... I hadn't realised that you hadn't already been blogging for ages...
It's interesting how the resolve to start a blog brings along a whole host of other things and new insights in the process.
One of the things that I tried to do was to overcome some of my reservations of talking about myself in relation to art, and my art (!) in the process. But it also has acted so much as a prompt for all sorts of other things, notably reflecting, doing, and planning.
I still have a lot of evolving and reflecting to do in regards to the blog.
I now have a studio to do art in, but no schedule! At the same time, I have a wonderful and big desk to drive the administrative side, including blogging.
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