05.10.26
hi again world wide web! how's it going? my busy busy month is finally, FINALLY over. but it's all paying off already, now that my semester is over i'm only working 3-ish days a week and also working doing sort of my own little gardening business on the side for some people outside of that. it started out just helping out an older couple in the area with some mulching, then their neighbor, then some other people in the community got wind of it so i'm sort of making the rounds right now. it's been fun and rewarding, and sort of giving me a taste of what it would be like if i were to start up my own landscaping business which.. i dont think will be happening any time soon, but it's good for in a pinch.
now that the semester is over, all of my friends have graduated and moved off ='[ sad! it felt like i didn't really make friends until senior year, but since i'm graduating in the winter i sort of had to see them all go off into the world. last night we were supposed to hang out with my friend one last time before they moved today, but slaters car ended up breaking down in the grocery store parking lot. it turned on just fine, but we couldn't get it to shift out of park... then the shift lock override also wouldn't work, so we had to get it towed. i feel really bad for slater, that car has been such a freaking nightmare this last year. my friend came and picked us up and brought us home, then i went and saw them today for one last breakfast and hangout (for now at least!). they'll be back for their birthday, so i'm excited to see them again soon.
i was going to get my art fight refs together, blow the dust off of my page, start getting an idea of people i wanted to attack but.. the recent update to the sites rules and TOS have led me to sit this one out. AF was already really on thin ice for the way they've policed people outside of their platform and banning them for content they post off of their platform.. it's just weird, skeevy and honestly just feels like a direct byproduct of the stupid surveillance state that we're expected to live in now. i was thinking, how can we start art fight outside of art fight? i don't think doing it on twitter with a hashtag is the answer. it'll just get lost, and something that really appealed to me about art fight was the fact that it took place off of mainstream social media.
part of me was thinking maybe a neocities-centric artfight esque game would be of interest to people? people hosting their own images, keeping track of their own defenses, etc, and there being a 'hub' site to keep track and tally of everything. i'm not really sure how it would all work, but lately i've been giving a lot of thought about neocities-based projects.
for instance...
ok, this is a REALLY messy concept but bear with me... what if there was some sort of artist collective webpage that acted as a hub for people to share their works? think of this as a super scaled down deviantart. there's a hub site that links to pages that follow a similar structure with a gallery for people to link their works. i'm thinking really, really small scale for this by the way, mostly for close friends who i feel like share my artistic values/vision. this way for my friends that don't feel great about maintaining their own HTML page or don't know much about it, i could help them with that aspect.
i just think it's really, really bad out there for artists lately. you can draw something as normal as a cute, completely SFW furry and if it breaks containment on twitter or ends up getting picked up by the wrong algorithm, you're suddenly getting tons of negative attention. sure you can block, but it still is really stressful. you can't control how people will react to your art emotionally or psychologically, but i feel like having a platform like this would allow for people to have the joy of sharing art in a community setting while also maintaining control of how their artwork is presented. this is a biggie for me, and i think is kind of the root of the issue with sharing art on mainstream social media platforms. it's gotten too big. we're really worried about clicks/views, but it comes at the expense of waking up to a QRT with 200k likes calling you names and coming to get you.
thinking back to dA days, it was such a big deal to hit 100 favorites on a piece. even 60 favorites felt crazy! every interaction really felt meaningful, and it felt much more like a community because it was easier to find likeminded people who shared a passion specifically for art on a platform that was dedicated to art. who would've thought? i know that i'm basically over here reinventing the concept of a webring, but i want to make it something a bit more intentional and specific than just a webring. when i look at the state of things and see the issues that my friends deal with on these major social media platforms i just can't help but think that it doesn't have to be this way. ofc it's different if you depend on commissions for income, but i could also see things starting to change where maybe people wouldn't have to be dependent on social media for finding commissioners. a better world is possible...
i'm still deliberating on how it would be done, what to name it, who to host, etc. at first i think it would just be close friends for simplicity's sake and to keep it small, but it's definitely something that i'm gonna be working on over the summer. stay tuned =] but yeah, shame about art fight. it might be fun to do some sort of art trading game over neocities? is something like that already in place? if you know, let me know! i think this post has gotten kind of long, so i'm wrapping it up for now... getting super psyched for the boards of canada release, stay tuned for my review when that comes out!
04.07.26
okay, take TWO on writing this entry because i was almost done with it then accidentally closed it out before i could wrap things up...
first of all, i am SOOO sorry that it's taken me so long to come back to this place. there was just so many little tiny things that needed to be fixed like cleaning up the blog for the new year, adding all the backlog pieces to my gallery, polishing up some little details, etc. i just never felt like i had the time or energy to sit down and do it all in one fell swoop, but didn't want to just chip away and have the site in some weird half-finished dissaray while waiting to complete everything. but i'm back! for now, at least. things are really busy right now between two jobs and full time studies, so i'm stretched a bit thin.
what's new... what's new... let's start with all the art stuff first!
i'm on vgen now! yayyy! if you've ever been interested in commissioning me, you can do so on my platform here! if you've never heard of vgen before, it's basically a marketplace for commission artists. you can search through approved artists and place an order for a piece like you would on a storefront platform like etsy or something similar, it's really easy and you don't even need an account to comm someone =] it's been a complete game changer in terms of taking comms and i'm looking forward to expanding my offerings on there soon. currently i'm just doing icons and chibis as that's really all i have time for, but i want to open some limited slots for more full pieces and I also have some YCH ideas I'm wanting to explore. so stay tuned for those!
this last week i finally presented my senior thesis show! it feels like i just started school not that long ago, but here we are... everything went really well and people were SO kind to me about my work, it really meant the world to me to hear how much people enjoyed it. i plan on uploading some images from the show once i have better quality pictures of my work, so be on the lookout for those soon =] i still have another semester to do before i'm officially done, but i'm already starting to gather my plans for what's next. i potentially have the opportunity to get my MFA, but finding a program near me is a little challenging. the one closest to me would be an hour commute either way, and moving to the town that it's in is kind of out of the question for now because of housing prices there. it's the same situation for the programs i'm looking at that are out of state too, but i have hope that if it's meant to happen then a way forward will open =]
there's been lots of exciting things happening art wise. 2026 has (so far) been a year of discovery for me, i'm brimming with all kinds of new ideas and learning new techniques and skills, exploring new paths. printmaking has become my latest obsession and i've been making tons of rubber stamps to make patches with! plus if i can find the space in our apartment, i want to set up a screenprinting area to make things with too. i'd love to be able to sell repurposed shirts with cool prints on them =] or tote bags, etc. there's too many things i want to do right now and just not enough time to explore any of it lol.
and it doesn't stop there either, i have big plans for revamping the OC pages here on my website now that i've been able to sit down and put names on my different stories that i have. my bf and i plan on collaborating on a project together soon, involving some familiar faces... you might be asking 'well what about quinn?' (or probably not because i really do not think people give my art and stories that much thought but bear with me lol) and i do intend on returning! unfortunately, i think i burnt myself out on the project. maybe it's less of 'burnout', but i think it was more of me choking instead of actually sitting down and working on it.
my first mistake with quinn was i was so desperate to get it out there, i didn't care how it looked or read or anything. the story and art both suffered for that, so i went back and decided to do things 'right' and give myself the time and space i needed to work on it. this led to me overthinking things, becoming stuck on obsessive little details and this need to get it 'right' this time because the story and characters are so precious to me. quinn is my oldest oc (that's still around at this point) and his story is something i've put a lot of thought and work into for well over a decade now. it became less of a fun project and more of some sort of delicate restoration process that i just couldn't stand anymore, it felt like i was chasing my tail in circles trying to figure it out 'for real this time'. slowly, i've come to the realization that it's time to take a complete step back for a moment. not a break, but a time to focus my effort onto a different project for now in order to reset myself and sort of shake this weird neurosis that i have about writing quinn.
i think this new project will hopefully interest people just as much, and give me time to learn and create without stressing myself out over perfecting something so that i can come back to quinn with a clear mind and a focus on the story itself instead of making sure it's perfect. i'm currently in the process of getting the website for this project together, it's going to be a semi-webcomic format horror story that i'm working on with slater as it involves a story we've been brewing for a few years now. it involves family secrets, generational violence, and alligators...
anyways, thanks for reading all this mess and i hope to be back soon to update those OC pages and flesh them out a little bit more/make them more personalized to each character. it feels good to write another blog entry again =] i'll see you guys soon!