Even ‘successful’ art sites like DeviantArt, which, with over 19 million registered members and over 45 million unique visitors per month, lacks in one most important aspects of a community: conversation. People might disagree with me and say, but there’s tons of comments on there! But let’s face it, comments aren’t necessarily a conversation. Most of what happens on DeviantArt involves artists broadcasting their art, and spectators, singing praises or telling the artists that their art sucks. DeviantArt has forums, journals, polls and a message center, but I still find that the user interface design doesn’t invite to really participate in any discussion. Messages get lost along the way, it’s not attractive, the kind of responses are often not about the topic… and let’s say it, DeviantArt needs to unclutter if they want a chance to be succesful as a real community with engaged users who do not just come to look at the pretty pictures. It’s more of a broadcasting platform than a communication platform, even though it claims to be an art community.

I was (briefly) part a community called Artician, which has a very slick design and left me with a good first impression: it wanted to be seen as a more professional, no nonsense platform, but it never reached critical mass. Why? Uploading your art portfolio is a complete hassle, even though they let you import your galleries from DeviantArt. Categories that you can file your art into are confusing or don’t match my idea of what my art is. Here, too, there is a bit of a disconnect between the platform, the art and the conversation.

The one community that I can think of that succeeds in being a community is that of ConceptArt(.org). I once made a list of what, in my opinion, a succesful community has, and ConceptArt.org has most of them:

Art, in itself, is a way to profile. It’s part of your identity. If it’s something you’re good at, you’ll no doubt like to show it to people. Conceptart.org is a community for artists that lets them display their art with the intention of getting feedback so they can improve upon whatever they want to improve upon. Training and seminars are organised offline; artists often meet in real life at one of these events. The community is all about user generated content. It’s the core of it. I haven’t met any assholes, but have received my share of well written but sometimes harsh criticism. Basically, it has all the best keypoints. There are however, two reasons why I didn’t stay: 1. I felt intimidated by the amazing talent on there. 2. There was a huge disconnect with the rest of the internet. ConceptArt.org is a forum, but there’s no easy way to share things with people not on the forum. It felt a bit outdated in design and user interface. And it felt a little bit elite. Not always a bad thing, but I didn’t stay.

It seems all these community based art sites have part of what it takes, but I’ve yet to find one that suits my every need. One where conversation is made easy and accessible.  Right now, my hopes are on Facebook, but I’d much rather see a new kind of community succeed.

Yet the best (or at least most interesting) of my pieces are the ones that I’ve left unfinished or more stylistic. This is backed up by the fact that they almost always get more likes on  Facebook and more reblogs on Tumblr. Often to my own annoyance, because after all,  I’ve worked my butt off to bring more details into the finished piece.

Clearly, my life is insanely complicated. I’ve been looking for an article that a fabulous artist wrote about the art of omission. It’s not actually called that, but I would call it that. It looks into the illusion of something you have to create as an artist by leaving things up to the viewer’s imagination. I’ve not yet mastered the technique. I’ll post another entry when I do find the article.

My most recent frustration in the ‘done is better than perfect’ department was over this piece (it’s not perfect, so it’s not done):

People say a picture says more than a thousand words. As cliche as it is, it’s true. And Pinterest makes it super fun. I signed up a while ago, just before it ‘got big’ and have been happily pinning away ever since. Today, I also added my art to my Pinboard. What do you think I could use Pinterest for, as an artist?

Follow me on Pinterest and let me know in the comments!

I’ve never known the answer to that question. More and more, people have been telling me that I’m nearing the age when I’m supposed to know what I want. I’ve always found this very difficult.

But, truth is, I’ve known what I really want to be doing for some time. At least, art-wise.  I’ve just been too damn scared to admit it.

My general, profession independent goal is this: I want to work for people who make a difference. That’s always been my goal, it’s my goal in my current job, it’s the reason I work for the company I work for now. The people in my company want to make a difference to someone. I’m the kind of person who would love to help them make a difference. I’m not great with leadership, but I have passion, and I know perseverance like no other.

But there’s something else:

I never really knew I wanted to be an artist, not until I was in my third year of Communication and Multimedia Design studies. Suddenly, at the age of 19, I discovered a whole new talent I never knew I had: digital painting.  But I wanted to go and get a job in the New Media industry. I wanted to tell stories, I wanted to connect (with) people. I still do.

But I’ve also found that art is only passion in my life that makes me feel absolutely free. Nothing about art is in any way influenced by the fact that I have a physical disability. I’m not slower, I don’t feel like I’m starting at minus one, which I do for everything else in my life.

Is it impossible to focus on two things at once? I believe not. I’m a woman after all. I’m allowed to multitask.

If you take a look at my portfolio, you’ll see a lot of celebrity portraits. Why? Because I love movies, I see these people on a screen every single day, and like me, they are practicing an art and do something creative. They tell stories, true or not, and I admire them for that. And sometimes, I just really like their faces.

So yes, when I grow up, I want to work for a film studio and make pretty pretty art for them. A little far fetched? Maybe. But it doesn’t hurt to dream. Fox, Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros, Sony, Universal, if you’re listening…

However difficult it was, I am so very excited that it actually worked out! Below, you can see the animation and a gallery of all the frames for entertainment value.

I met Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Bartha at their play called Asuncion in New York, and Darren Criss and Joey Richter after their music/musical/theatre performance in Boston.

See their signed portraits, and my photos with them, below.

However, sometimes, when life gives you lemons… (I’m disabled, receive a disability allowance, but started working more hours and now have to pay the government a lot of money back)

…you gotta make t-shirts.

So I have made a design ( called Upside Down Umbrella) and it is now up for voting on Threadless. If it gets enough (high) votes, it gets printed and I get 2500 dollars from Threadless!

You can rate it on Threadless.

What else can you do? Well, some of my friends really showed me the best way to help me out is by sharing the link to the t-shirt design on Facebook. What most of them have done is not only shared the link but wrote some very nice encouragements while doing so. Some even tagged their friends on Facebook in the comments of the shared message, meaning their friends get notified more directly about my design!

So, what can I say, tweet, share on Facebook, +1 on GooglePlus or just e-mail your friends if you think they would like my design and would be willing to score it for me! The design is still subject to six more days of voting!