Why Blog? - My Take - Part 2

In my notes for Matt's question "3) Why do you blog?", in Jan 07, I wrote:

• Failed writer.
• Put thoughts on “paper”; then move on. (I can’t multitask.)
• Communicate with other weavers (not a lot) and other artists (much more) from around the world. In fact, GREAT feedback on advices experiences from a jewelery maker, graphic artists, weavers, and textile aficionados the USA and Europe.

So here's the whole story, thus far.

In April 06, I started Unravelling, a week after Ben and I finally got my web site up. Back then, I imagined writing polished articles occasionally (quarterly was the goal) in lieu of a marketing newsletter to email to my small circle of commission clients and vendors. I thought I could email the url, or even copy/paste the content or a post. I saw blogging as a convenient archival system, easier than the html bits-and-pieces format.

Beyond that, I didn't know anything about blogging, except that people with strong political convictions did it. A few months later, we got involved in the Daily Photo group and we discovered people visited and commented on each other's blog, and that blogging was another circle of friends.

When I started, I also had tendinitis on my right wrist and couldn't weave for over four months. (and further three months until I was comfortable weaving.) The blog was a good way to divert my energy.

For a long time I believed I wanted to be a writer, but I never had the patience to work on any one piece long enough, so writing was between the forefront of my identity, but on the back burner of my To Do list. Blogging gave, and continues to give me, a release for my writing/talking urges. And because I am not forever preparing something for possible, though improbable, publication, instead I can write and post, I don't have to regurgitate the thought in my head; I can post and be done with it, and then go downstairs.

This "do it and move on" aspect has been important for me. I have a lot of mind/brain chatter and I need a lot of energy suppressing it. One of my numerous answers to "4) Why do you weave?" reads:

"Because there is a degree of finality with each step of weaving, a point of no return, so, unlike writing, you can't go back to the beginning and start over. I need this to complete projects, a way to propel me to stop dithering with life and live it."

For months I didn't have visitors to Unravelling, and it was a quiet, room where I could complain or scream and feel good and leave. Communication started to happen after my DP friends started dropping by, possibly because I mentioned my exhibit over in Nelson Daily Photo; I can't remember. In Jan 07, most of the visitors to Unravelling were art practitioners who found me via the DP circle.