Keeping up with the latest trends in technology available to artists can be exhausting, time consuming and more than a little frustrating, especially when the time that is being consumed is time that could be spent in the studio. However, I think it is safe to say that technology is a necessary evil that is here to stay. So with that in mind we might as well make friends with the beast, feed it, and let it do what it was created to do: help you get your message across. Perhaps it may seem a bit less frightening if you were to replace the words “trends in technology” with “tools”. Keeping up with the latest “tools” that are available to artists sounds a lot less intimidating. I recently had to do just that.
I have been telling my clients for years about the importance of having an artist website. A few months ago I posted a blog with some affordable suggestions for those who have not yet taken that plunge. In that post, I talked about giving my own websites a facelift, well actually, a complete makeover plus facelift. I redid my websites from the ground up using WordPress. Now, I was able to add and update all my own content. However, not all themes are created equal. Though my business website had a blog, (as you can see), my own artist website, BretCorrington.com, did not. And while most themes come with a blog, the theme I chose was not one of them. As some artists have done, I could have just started a free blog on a separate site like blogger.com and then put a link from that site to my website; It could have even looked like it was a blog that was created on my website. The problem being, my blogs would not actually be posted from my website, but rather a 3rd party site, and Google would not see any actual activity on my website from the blog post.
Good thing I have been keeping up with the latest “tools” available to artists. Since I created my artist website with a WordPress theme, I was able to move all of my content to a theme that had a blog all set up and ready to go. So now begins the process of documentation: a creative journal. I am realizing more and more how important it is to have a blog on your artist website. Aside from being a tool that you can use for expression and self-examination, it is quite literarily a window into the artist’s world.
You can see my own artist blog at BretCorrington.com/blog
