Recently I received an email from a very polite Danish student name Marie Omann who is doing research on contemporary artists’ weblogs. She asked me a few questions and I thought I’d post them with my replies. See below.

Marie Omann:
After having done research on the artblog phenomena for a couple of months now, I’m surprised to find that not many artists use this media. Personally I would find it an ideal space for artistic exhibition, exploration and exchange. Do you have an explanation to this?

T.Whid:

I agree with you (which is obvious as I’m a fairly avid blogger). I’m not sure why more artists don’t maintain blog-like web sites. Those artists who don’t use technology in their work I’ve found to be fairly computer-phobic. You find many more photographers and designers in the ‘blogosphere’ then your average fine artist. There is a huge design blog world, with some of the biggees being k10k.org, zeldman.com, www.mezzoblue.com, stopdesign.com, and whatdoiknow.org.

What made you start blogging?

At first I wanted to separate MTAA’s art site (mteww.com) from documentation of the art (resume, texts etc) so I set-up what we call the MTAA Reference Resource (mteww.com/mtaaRR) which eventually morphed into a blog-like web site. I added the blog so we could easily post updated news to the site. At first I thought it would just be upcoming shows, events and etc. I was sick of maintaining a mailing list so I thought it would be easier.

What keeps you blogging?

Since it’s very easy to update the site I just post things there all the time that I might email to either my collaborator M.River or post to a discussion list like Rhizome. I was very active on the Rhizome list for many years but I like the blog better. Discussions started on the blog are less likely to devolve into flame wars and it’s less aggressive. If people want to read my opinions and thoughts the site is passively waiting for them to visit, my ideas don’t wind up in people’s in-boxes. Plus, after Rhizome switched to a fee-based membership I decided that any extended writings of mine needed to be freely accessible via the Internet.

Do you perceive your blog primarily as a personal or as a professional project?

Hmmm. Good question. I have two professions, designer and artist. The blog is about the art aspect of my career. I treat it very personally: I use slang, curse, swear, and don’t check my spelling. But it has all of MTAA’s professional artist info as well (resume, documentation, etc) so it is a professional site. I guess I assume that folks will cut me some slack on the sometimes highly opinionated and bawdy posts that find their way to the blog section.

Does your blog affect your work process as an artist?

Sometimes I’ll post thoughts and ideas regarding current projects and will get feedback via the comments. Sometimes I use it as a way to communicate with M.River without having to use email if I think some folks might find that communication interesting.

Do you know of other artists blogging (besides M. River)?

Not in anyway an exhaustive list: Joy Garnett, Tom Moody, Jonah Peretti set-up reBlog, Jonah Brucker-Cohen. jimpunk keeps one that is art!

Do you know of artists reading your blog?

I’m not sure. We don’t get tons of comments. But folks who read it tend to be personal friends, and MTAA know lots of artists.

Do you feel part of the blogosphere? I mean do you feel part of a community of (art)bloggers?

Yes and no. There isn’t a huge community of art bloggers. And I don’t really feel part of the larger blog community as I don’t include typically ‘bloggy’ things like link lists and trackbacks. The mtaaRR blog is really specialized. And it’s supposed to be about the art collaboration, MTAA, many times I’ll twist a post back to why it relates to MTAA. I think people find this narcissistic. Which it is I suppose.

Have you met any problems being a blogger?

Being so outspoken on the blog could lead to problems professionally. But I’m not aware of any specific issue to date; the fear lurks in the back of my mind sometimes, but I don’t worry about it much.

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I CC’d a bunch of other ‘art’ webloggers and they had some really great replies (better than mine). It would be grand if any of them are lurking out there would be so kind as to post their thoughts via the comments function. (You can use HTML tags now :-)