I recently opened an Instagram account. I resisted for a long time; but gave it a try as a way of seeing new and interesting work and possibly getting my work seen by a wider audience. I know that’s not how most people use Instagram, but I’m pretty selfie-adverse. I just don’t see the point of posting endless photos of myself or what I’m eating or doing. I prefer to savor life’s experiences without feeling I need to document every bit of it, and would rather show you something interesting than show you a photo of myself for the 10,000th time.
Anyway, the new Instagram account made me realize that I actually have a fairly large online presence. I also realized that while there is overlap among all my social media accounts, I try to have a different focus with each one, and that might not be very clear. So, to to sort it all out, here are all my social media accounts and how I use them.
Facebook
I think of this as an online cocktail party. Light conversation, sharing laughs with friends, and casually sharing things with a wide variety of people, most of whom I’ve met personally. Sometimes I get political, but try to keep it in check. More often, it’s just everyday goofiness and things I find interesting for one reason or another.
I maintain a separate Facebook page for my work as an artist. Everything on here is related to what I make and where I show it. Follow the page to see what I’m up to creatively, and view a large selection of my work.
This is my blog. I started it when on sabbatical several years ago, as a way of documenting what I was working on. Since then, I’ve kept writing posts, although somewhat infrequently. Most of my posts over the past couple of years have been the same examples of my work I post on other social media, with occasional short discussions about my work and art in general. I keep thinking I should write and post more here, and probably would if I thought anyone was paying attention. Do you read this blog? Let me know!
I basically use Flickr as an online photo album of my creative work. No personal or family photos here, it’s all work I want to share with the world. Probably broader in scope than the work on my Facebook artist page, I’ll post vacation photos (ones I think turned out pretty good) and other photos here that I generally don’t on the Facebook artist page.
My Tumblr page. The description on the page reads “absurdity, ephemera, and art”, which sums it up pretty well. I post things that inspire me to make art, as well as the creative fruits of that inspiration. Don’t expect much personal stuff, I don’t use Tumbler in that way. Expect lots of kitschy ephemera-scans from old books and magazines, etc. along with examples of my work, art and design by others I find interesting, and the occasional video clip, piece of music, or geeky repost of whatever pop culture I’m currently obsessing over. It’s everything that goes into my mental slow cooker, and the finished dishes that come out.
The baby of my social media accounts. Still refining what I want this to be, but it’s looking like it will be mainly posts of my creative work along with occasional photos I shoot with my phone of things I find interesting when I’m out and about. By the way, don’t be offended if you follow me and I don’t immediately (or maybe ever) follow you back. I don’t want my Instagram to be a rehash of the same stuff I see on Tumblr and Facebook. I want it to be more focused on art than on snapshots, and I have Facebook and Tumblr for seeing and sharing casual, fun posts.
Society 6 is a site that sells prints, t-shirts, coffee mugs and a bunch other things with images I’ve made. They do all the printing and shipping, and I receive a payment whenever someone orders something I’ve made. An easy way to sell my work, even if I make next to nothing doing it.
