Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Military Intelligence

Luck has nothing to do with Lucky the blog reviewer giving my blog a big thumbs down. I actually signed up and invited Lucky to review my blog. And it was a lot of fun! I recommend it to lots of bloggers and I hope I turn someone onto his super fun-spirited past time. Lucky began a blog while deployed in Iraq. It seems he has met tons of great people and his intentions and purpose for his blog naturally transformed and he ended up reviewing blogs as a hobby. I think he could probably charge money for the service!

He did not enjoy visiting my blog, he gave me one hump out of a five hump rating system, and I think I'm lucky I got the one hump, heh heh. But it was a really fun excercise and I say take it on. I knew right away I was asking for trouble. I grew up on army bases and waiting for him to review my blog triggered feelings of waiting for my dad to finish reviewing my homework. If you've ever read The Great Santini by Pat Conroy, you might get a feel for the dread of citicism being a flaky artist in a military family. There were a couple of us signed up to "Get Humped" and supporting each other waiting to find out how badly asskicked we would get in blogland.

I think my parents were at the end of an era when it was hip to be into one's culture and follow the art scene. No body does that any more. My parents get credit for this, they loved art and exposed my sister and I to all kinds of shows from Egyptian art to Colour Field paintings. They also exposed us to other cultures, religions, styles of living and gender equality. Considering my father, and his father, were conservative military men, I think this is remarkable and defines the kind of tolerance and enthusiasm that is lost in most childrens education today. Popular music and movies and tv are the major sources of art for kids. When I was growing up, it was the same but also included studying poetry, art and dance. That was a standard approach, everybody had to take art in school.

Lucky begins my review...

I am not an art critic. I know very little about, and therefore have very little appreciation for, classic art. I've been to some of the most amazing museums in the world, all over Europe and the Pacific, and I still don't know the difference between good and bad art. So, you can imagine my apprehension when I figured out that I was reviewing the website of an artist.

It's heartbreaking to me the desert that is art programs for kids. Art shouldn't be scary. Art shouldn't make a Major in the U.S. military apprehensive. This is a crime in our school systems...and continues a theme I have discussed here at this blog...that political intellectual mobsters have stolen art from the public. Art has been smuggled by universities and hidden in ugly architecture mimicking armouries.

Although I am going to continue my blog the way it is now, as a research journal for scripts and a photo diary for family and friends...I loved getting humped, even a shitty hump. I think Lucky is one cool dude, and I even hope he might get a little taste of Candy and come back for a visit now and then. He is my target audience. And it hurts me to fail at exciting someone into the world of universal mythology and stories, of art, and throwing out notes questioning "Is this the only way to get by on earth?" I had hoped that producing a chronicle of paintings as they were made and the items and content would showcase how anyone can make art, and that art is a narrative for each other. A form of storytelling. Quick, simple, emotional. And for the masses. My parents and teachers knew that it wasn't about whether art was "good art or bad art" it was about storytelling. A painting talks to us whether it is good or bad, or we like it or hate it. Is it sucessful in it's impact on us? Is it pretty? What does it mean? What does it make me think about? Is it saying something about the human condition? What is reality? Why are we here? What is love, truth, humour? Who are you? Oh well, back to the drawing board...

More from "Getting Humped"

Her artwork is interesting--the only problem I had with it is that it just suddenly pops up in her first month, with no background as to why she's posting those pictures or who made the paintings (it becomes obvious later). She now takes some great photos--not so at the beginning. She has a post that she is discussing a television show and lo and behold--she includes a picture of her TV. Once she figures out how to take pictures though, it quickly goes into photo overload--with dozens of photos posted over the course of a few weeks. Getting an account like Flickr to showcase her photos would make it a much more readable blog, while not losing the most valuable part of her site--the photos she takes.

CONVERSATION: While she gets a good amount of comments (5-10 per post) a large number of those comments are her own replies, reducing that number down to 2-5 per post.

OVERALL: For people interested in art this might be a good blog to see other's work. If you have time to read all the long posts, it also might be worth a read--just not for me.

6 comments:

* (asterisk) said...

Candy, I love the way you've excerpted Lucky's comments here - precisely one of the "complaints" he made about your blog. You go, girl!

And you're so right about the theft of art from the public, too.

Shannon Hollender said...

Hey, Candy
Thanks for visiting my blog. I'm glad someone is reading and enjoying. It's great being a carney, I get to be chummy with all sorts of ppl. Circus folk are really fun from what I hear. Wish I knew one, I'm jealous. :)
Um... Question: How do you get to see who visits your site? I'd love to do similar and write to those who visit my site. That's really a nifty thing in my mind.
Please let me know.
Thanks Bunches :)
~Shannon

rauf said...

Why do you have a blog ?
You like to express yourself.
You express yourself with your words and with your brush. I have been reading your posts for quite some time now, and found that you are very well read, highly imaginative. I do not know your educational qualifications, but I found you to be highly educated in various subjects. I have enjoyed reading your posts and in the process got myself some useful information and got myself educated as well. I really don't care about number of comments you get or how somebody rates your blog. I have seen some very silly meaningless blogs get 150 comments.
number of comments is not an index of the quality of the blog. I found zero comments on some exceptionally good blogs. I will not make any attempt to rate your blog. I can only say that your blog is highly educative.
Pardon my english please. It is not my language Candy.

Shannon Hollender said...

Thanks! Yay to now having a tracker! Thank you!!!

Candy Minx said...

Rauf your english is terrific! And it's true, we all have blogs for different reasons...and I think there are different ways to approach being accessible to friends or strangers passing by...I enjoy all different inds of blogs and approaches. Some are entertaining, humourous all the time...some rant, some are "mommy blogs"(which crack me up) business/marketing blogs(boy are there a lot of those!)and how we present our posts and comments is a little different. Some people put an "explanation" of what their blog is going to be. I didn't. I didn't know and still don't. Its for me like when people meet each other, I don't want someone in a box, or to put me in a box or label each other.

I liked the getting humped thing though. I found it to be a positive feeling over all, and I enjoyed seeing how my blog looked to someone witha very different lifestyle than me. That is exciting and fun!!!

Thanks for the moral support Nowt, F.F. and d34dPuppy, it feels good. Hey I am not an easy person to get to know, I'm friendly and open, but my blog is a little like me...it takes a bit of time. But I think that is like all of us. Blogs are like people.

I think the strangest criticism by Lucky was that I replied to people in the comments section. For me, it would be feeling very rude and sick to not talk to the folks who come by and visit. If we were in the same room, I'd be making a pot of tea or mixing cocktails...and cheese and crackers ya know? I also like to go to the blogs of people who post here...or if their blog shows up on my tracker I will go to the blogs(sometimes, it's a little shocking, but thats the internet for you)

Hey Shannon, glad that worked out for you! Hope you have lots of fun and get lots of visitors to your blog.

Cheers,
Candy

* (asterisk) said...

Yeah, I'm not sure what the correct etiquette is for replying to comments, but it would be rude not to, wouldn't it?

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