Art Sites

I won't be writing for a few weeks, so here are some sites you may want to check:

To sieve through the deluge of internet info, I speed read, and try hard to concentrate on what's relevant to me, but sometimes I get caught into such a burst of inspiring work from art sites that I can't quit that easily. Some are there for the purpose of selling artwork, like Paul Comarmond's at Yessy and Charmaine Johnson Putnam's at Absolutearts .

Others are for sharing photos and art, like Philip Lim's gallery at Deviant Art and Mondo's gallery at Flickr . These thrive on a community atmosphere where members write to each other with clever or silly pseudonyms like Elle-est-mental, Waitingforgodot, Hotsauce, Blasphemedsoldier, Surlybratt, etc. Common interests give a feeling of connection and make it fun to exchange photos, writing, and thoughts with members who hail from countries as remote as Estonia and Tibet. Some artists' works, especially in Deviant, are awesome, while others are uninspiring but what a great learning opportunity for everybody! These sites have a way of snowballing and you wonder how much larger they can possibly grow - imagine over 30 million artwork/photos in one site only, and this is only a small fraction of what's availbale on the net.

I'm fascinated by these community sites' easy accessibility to people around the globe one would otherwise never meet unless one travelled extensively. Will virtual encounters replace the need to interact with real people? I personally believe the warmth of human touch is essential to life and cannot be replaced by a computer, but I'm intrigued by the ramifications of online socializing. Anyway, as if my plate isn't full enough, I've taken up the invitation to join and just became a Deviant with this photo gallery, a bit boring so far, but I know it will get much better over time with inspiration and feedback from Deviant artists.

Enjoy these galleries!