WordPress Blogging For Beginners Course

Hello My Friends! Although some of you have been travelling on this virtual road with me for 9 years, more or less, I’m taking this time to try to make this a smoother journey. Let’s take a look back and adjust course to move forward together.

I begin my first assignment in the WordPress Blogging for Beginners Course which is basically to Think about your favorite blog, especially one that’s been around for a year or so and has a lot of content. Chances are, your favorite blogger is writing with an Ideal Reader in mind, too.

Who are you writing for? So here goes!

I write for YOU, the eclectic or mixed media artist, like myself, who may specialize in one but also uses other mediums to make art. Touching base on photography, printmaking, painting and paper arts, my focus has primarily been on textile art and making jewelry, mostly earrings, for the past 8 or 9 years.

Although I’m not new at blogging, so many things have changed, all at once and they’ve upped the game so much that the class is filled with long time bloggers trying to take it all in. I expected to post this by 10 AM, but try as I might, I could not for the life of me manage to set a featured image that pic that shows above the blog post…and I persisted for hours without success! Ugh!

For about the last four years, I was eco-dyeing and ecoprinting, in an outdoor studio I worked in from May or June to October or November. Health issues determined an end to that for some time now. Although I need some surgeries, they won’t be happening until The Covid crises is over. Either I or my doctors don’t want to do elective surgeries (only life or death issues) until hospitals become a safer place to be in. So, I’ve been working as I can on various projects and will continue on this piecemeal approach until I’m back on my feet. Buckle up! We’re in first gear!

I share the art and processes I use to make my art with but there’s a lot of room for improvement on this.  For various reasons/excuses (frequent moves, health issues…) I’m not organized enough to be as detailed in my blog posts as I’d like to be .Here’s a one-handed selfie video I did showing me unrolling a piece of ecoprinted fabric to show part of the process:

Basically, I share anything I think my readers will be interested in, including my politics which is also expressed in my art sometimes. Some other bloggers I read also do this, although most steer far and wide from politics. Being an old community organizer, I’m not inclined to shy away from it and feel that it’s a worthy topic.

Challenging as it was for a class assignment, I’ve chosen to write about three bloggers that are among my favorites.

None have a Blogroll or Most Popular Posts; in fact, nothing or little else appears on their pages other than their posts. All have some basic commonalities that attract and inspire me: they focus on process; Although they are all quite different from one another in their art, I appreciate the artistry of all of their work and I admire their generosity in sharing with others. I encourage you to check out their fabulous blogs if you haven’t already!

Stephanie Fern https://stephanieredfern.wordpress.com/ alternates between textile and paper arts, making collaged fiber, paper and book arts. Her entire processes are beautifully photographed and described.

Bobbi Baugh https://www.bobbibaughstudio.com/work makes art with fabric, paper, and mixed media. She uses printmaking with fabric and paper. Her blog is heavily laden with the how-to aspect, clearly laying out her various processes.

Michelle Mischkulnig  https://chelletextiles.com.au/blog/ Is a textile designer/artist that I just discovered and think her art and her blog is pretty interesting and well done. Here’s a gorgeous scarf of hers:

They are all to varying degrees art/designers/educators, generously detailing how they create both visually and with the written word. I think the Artist/Maker is who they (we) all speak to; that is, the person behind the title who is always wanting to experiment, grow and learn. These three women are, fundamentally, excellent communicators with stories to tell and a willingness to divulge their own knowledge and methods of working in the arts.

If that’s not enough to shoot for, I would love it if I could achieve the uncluttered look and the focus they have all managed to produce! Hopefully, you’ll see an improvement already, but I have my work cut out for me.

I want to add another great link to a recent article from TextileArtists.Org featuring a fellow, talented ecoprinter who has taught me a lot in the past few years, Caroline Nixon. It’s very good read!

Thanks a bunch for being here for me! It wouldn’t quite be worth it if no one was reading!

Note: Also linking up with Creations – Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre, another fabulous blogger!