All the Strange Hours » personal

Back

David — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:16:53 +0000

I’ve been away for awhile, because I got very busy with other projects, including a complete redesign of my employer’s web site.

I think I’m back. I should be able to do some posting, catch up with responses to comments, etc. My apologies to anyone I haven’t responded to in a timely manner.

I’m also considering some site changes that would involve a switch from Wordpress (blogging software) to Drupal (Content Management System). Support request: if there’s anyone out there who could help figure how to configure wp2drupal module so that content could be migrated, I’d be very grateful.

Two years

David — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:03:00 +0000

All the Strange Hours is two years old today. Coincidentally, the blog is also approaching it’s 100,000th page view. As internet sites go, that’s not an incredibly high number over two years, but I appreciate the attention. Over the next few weeks I plan to re-post some “best of” items that might be worth looking at again.

Thanks to everyone who has come by and stayed awhile. And thank especially to those who have contributed to the blog by commenting or—in Katarzyna’s case—by posting.

I’d like to take this opportunity to reiterate my invitation to others who might want to participate here. If you’d like to blog at ATSH about visual art, send me an email and we can discuss it.

Tell me more about…the Art Therapy

Katarzyna — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:49:38 +0000

Welcome again - David and the readers of the ATSH. Today briefly, but I hope to encourage you to shower this site with, as always, some interesting comments.

I know, that ‘Art Therapy’ subject is quite loaded with different meanings and, probably, not free from controversies too. Yet, from what I can see browsing the relevant pages, this kind of psychological (medical) therapy has flourished in the US, with AATA (American Art Therapy Association) looking quite fit and professional.

At the same time it remains relatively exotic in Europe and especially in Ireland. My college was first in this country to introduce Art Therapy MA degrees (based on BA Hons. in Fine Art) - they are available from 1998, became quite popular, yet it’s still far from ordinary to see Art Therapist working in institutions, schools or hospitals.

I haven’t personally met yet with any sort of this practice and know nothing about its factual effectiveness. I’m interested especially in any record, experience related to the ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), since one case of it has been diagnosed in my family. Have you met with an art therapy “in action”? Are you yourself qualified and practicing? Do you have any opinions, thoughts or experiences on that subject, on how it works (if at all) on autistic children? Thanks for sharing.

Q & A Page

David — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:51:29 +0000

I just made a page for visitors to post questions—you can see a link to it in the navigation bar at the top of each page. I get a fair number of questions, sometimes attached to a random post because the visitor didn’t really know where else to post the question. So now there’s a place.

If you put a relevant question into the comments there, I will respond. Of course, my response may be simply to tell you that I don’t know. But feel free to give it a try. It’s not exactly an internet forum, but it will serve for now.

Update

21 June 2008: Of course, the first question (an excellent one) stumped me. More, please. I’ll have a good answer to someone’s question eventually.

Painting shirt

David — Sat, 31 May 2008 16:36:27 +0000

This is the t-shirt I paint in most of the time. As you can see, I often wipe my brush or palette knife on the shirt as I work.

Some benefits of keeping a “Studio Journal”

Katarzyna — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:37:05 +0000

First and foremost - to keep the work alive with thinking/reflection
To preserve unique moments of a discovery
To preserve equally unique moments of a struggle/crisis
To learn from one’s own story
To exercise an insight and self-recognition
To learn self-discipline and persistence
To develop skill in a creative/accurate writing

By “Studio Journal” I mean any form of a written record of one’s own progress/actions in an artistic studio (by ‘studio’ I mean an actual workplace - wherever thinking/working takes place; it can be a gallery, trip, workshop, library).

It can be kept in a form of a sketchbook, where drawings, work-samples, illustrations are included, however a special care should be taken for putting experiences into words… It’s slightly similar to maintaining a web-blog, however, more personal…

It’s best rewarding when the discipline of regular notes (based on everyday, each two/three days frequency) is applied consistently.

I’ve been sustaining my own ‘Journal’ for a month as for now and must say - it’s got a power to surprise. I mean - reading my own two-weeks-old thoughts is sometimes like flying on another planet…

But one important rule - one has to be honest - and a diary is a great lecture on honesty… On one day I wrote: “I’m not going to pretend that I have something interesting to say…” And sometimes is nothing more than that…

So, good luck with that - if you accept this challenge of mine…

Few not-modern notes on humanity…

Katarzyna — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:42:18 +0000

Quite recently I’ve got an interesting, half-an-hour talk about nothing. It happened to be focused on modern art, modern human condition, place for beauty and ethics within it and, after making a heroic round in escaping its inbuilt vacuum it came to the point of an inception - to a rather corny remark that “nonsense” seems to be a surname of today’s existence. How to make art in the modern chaos and to remain sane? Although Louis Bourgeois wrote in her painting that Art is the warranty of sanity she wrote also I’ve been in Hell and back, and let me tell you - it was wonderful. Going to Hell is the condition of the modern artist, whether s/he comes back and is ready to admit that it was wonderful is a quite another, usually very personal story.

Since my partner in the above-mentioned chat was far from being an average, junior, intelligent guy who finds “fashionable” to talk post-modern slogans (no matter how out of place they are), we’ve managed to make a way for some deeper observations. Yet everything seemed to slip through our fingers - any sense, any understanding of each other. Why is it so difficult to communicate on a level, where any social game must to disappear in the presence of truth? Why in the age of gutsy exhibitionism, omnipresent “display” of human “values” we are mute and/or extremely amateurish when it comes to formulate, understand and convey basic reflection on our existential condition? I wonder what was that ancient Greek spoke about, or people of 18th century France, or even contemporaries of Hemingway, Kafka, Dostojewski? Have they been taught the art of communicating oneself to others or maybe times they lived in encouraged it in the most natural fashion?

So we talked about beauty which became something terribly old-fashioned, neglected and misunderstood. After Picasso and the modern rest ridiculed classical rules of harmony and pleasure it seems to be quite trendy to make art that disturbs, wipes out smile and joy; art of dark colours, sad faces and deliberately nonchalant in appearance. Even if beauty occurs it’s very often accidental, has nothing in common with beliefs and aspirations of an artist. Majority of work in my college is like that, my own work oscillates between “blue” and darkness of being alive here and now… What a waste of a pair of healthy hands. Why not to aspire to be the next Cezanne or Canova? Why not to aspire to make the happiest, the most beautiful paintings/sculptures ever? Why even these questions sound ridiculously?

It was the eternal beauty of art in Paris that grabbed my mind and heart. Who knows - maybe it’s the right time for a new Renaissanse, for rediscovering once again value and sense in our human condition? That could be even interesting…

Just for the classical taste, few shots of The Louvre’s treasures I took during my trip to Paris:

Phone

David — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:50:30 +0000

Tude

David — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:34:26 +0000

I used to post a lot of photos here. I thought I’d start again.

This is my son Brendan. In this photo I can just imagine him at age 14.

Click for a larger version.

Update

28 March 2008: Image wasn’t displaying properly when clicked. Fixed now.

Blogging mechanics with WordPress

David — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:18:46 +0000

Now that I’ve been blogging for awhile, I thought I’d post a bit about the process. I understand that many people come here without any interest in the mechanics of blogging. If so, then just skip this post. Others will be familiar enough with technical issues that all this will seem way too simple. Again, just skip the post. If I make any mistakes in attempting to explain this, however, I’m hope someone with more technical knowledge than I have will let me know.

I started out, lo these couple of years ago, using the free and easy Blogger service provided by Google. The old version of this blog is still there; I’ll probably get around to deleting it at some point. After a couple of months I got tired of the limitations imposed by blogspot. I had my own domain and host; after a little digging I discovered that my host would install WordPress with just a button press. WordPress imports posts from Blogger, so I installed it and had it do that. I then had to manually import all of my images. That was kind of a pain, but not hard to figure out.

There are a number of free blogging platforms out there; WordPress is one of the most popular. It has its irritations, but it is quite functional and has been extended in various ways by a community of programers who mostly work for free (or for donations).

PHP, SQL, etc.

WordPress works on top of two pieces of software. The first is a database system called MySQL (SQL stand for “structured query language”). The database holds all of text of each post and other information such as the name of the blog, the date and time of each post, etc. WordPress itself is written in a programming language called PHP (which, so far as I can tell, originally stood for “personal home page” and now doesn’t really stand for anything). PHP is used to get information from the database and translate it into information that your web browser can understand. Every time you call up the front page of ATSH, the PHP program gathers information from the database and gives it to your browser. The program knows how many of the most recent posts go on the front page, so it figures out which to use based on their posting date. When you click on, say, a tag such as “egg tempera painting” it pulls every post with that tag from the database and constructs a page with those posts presented in chronological order. And so on.

Themes

WordPress comes with a couple of basic themes, but there are many others available for download. A theme is what controls the look and feel of the blog; the colors, the heading, the number of columns, the interface for moving from one page to another, and so on. Lots of people write WordPress themes and make them available for free. There are others (usually with more extensive or specialized features) that you can buy. I use a free and excellent theme called Tarski.

Plugins

Other people write plugins for WordPress. Like themes, there are many plugins available for free. Plugins extend the basic functionality of Wordpress. Like WordPress itself, plugins are pieces of software written in PHP. With most plugins, you install them, turn them on, adjust a couple of settings, and they just work. I have plugins that block spammers from leaving comment spam, for example. Another plugin lets commenters track replies to posts they’ve commented on. Yet another calculates which posts are most “popular” and lets me put a list of popular posts in the sidebar on the left side of the page.

Messing around with plugins

I like fiddling with computer stuff, so I’ve spent some time making the blog look the way I want. With some plugins, that involves getting more technical.

For example, you’ll notice that there is a randomly-selected image in the top corner of the sidebar. I use two plugins to make that happen. One, called Random Image, selects an image at random from posts in whatever category or categories you wish. You can then place this bit of code somewhere:

That that strange-looking string of words and symbols tells Random Image to query the database for a lists of posts in the selected categories I’ve selected and figures out which of those posts are associated with a picture file. It then sticks one of those pictures in the place where I put the PHP code.

The other plugin I need to make this work is called “Executable PHP Widget.” A widget is an item in the sidebar on the left side of the page. WordPress comes with widgets that allow you to type some text to be displayed in the sidebar. Those standard widgets don’t do anything with PHP code—they don’t treat it as programming code to be executed. The Executable PHP widget acts just like a WordPress text widget, except that any PHP code in that kind of widget gets treated as code and executed. I pasted the above Random Image code into the widget, so that the code is executed and I get a random image in the sidebar.

I have no idea how to program with PHP. I didn’t need to in order to get these bits of software to work. That’s one of the great things about software such as WordPress. On the other hand, if you are more scared of code than I am, you can use WordPress without using a plugin such as Random Image. I do think it’s a nice feature for an art blog.

Those are just a few of the details. Let me know if you want to hear more about how this all works, or if this is a waste of time.