So, I was considering what the topic was going to be for today's blog post. Was I going to finally put up some museum photos? Or would the Christmas festivities get the spotlight? And then I noticed my post total. It was 665 posts.
Well, only a persistent blogger gets to enjoy a 666th post. So, here's a lovely, popsicle-suckin' Coop devil girl to celebrate the event right. ;-)
When I started this blog, my initial expectations were not set very high. I had serious doubts about the value of undertaking this project. My concerns were varied, but the most salient was in regards to "wasting" time. In short, was this blog going to be a purposeless vanity project that would drain away my time and energy?
So, I came to terms with the strong possibility that I would be writing for nothing and to nobody. It was likely to be enthusiasm and creativity lost among the sea of information, pixels poured into the endless flow of the internet. If this was the almost certain outcome, then why should I start a blog? What is my incentive?
I turned my focus inwards. Although I would love to have a large and faithful readership, as long as I am having fun writing, it is a worthwhile endeavor. This blog is all about me and my interests. If it entertains or informs an occasional reader, then that's just icing on the cake.
More magazines
Well, the blog has grown fairly well over the past year. By most standards, it has a miniscule readership, but it's large enough that I constantly feel amazed that there are some people out there who actually want to read my odd ramblings. On average, I put about an hour a day into this blog. Considering this relatively minor effort, I feel pretty good about things. ;-)
And I hope you, my dear readers, find that coming to Paideia is a rewarding visit. I know that the internet has a nearly infinite supply of sites to meet just about any desire. So, it is with humble gratitude that I welcome you to this little blog.
LJ strikes a pose similar to that from one year ago.
Yeah, it's been a while since I plopped my ugly visage upon the top of a blog post, but, since it's my first blogiversary, I figured I'd go all retro, bringing back the tradition of the self-portrait "meta" posts. ;-)
Although I can't believe that this project has gone on for a year, I'm so happy that it has. There has been a fair share of frustrations and failures, always falling short of my goals, like the 500 posts in a year, but, for every shortcoming, there has been abundant pleasure to counter the disappointment. In sum, writing Paideia has been a joy!
Here's what I wrote in Post #1:
"Each day is an opportunity to learn something new, to appreciate the richness of life, and to share our thoughts and feelings with our friends. Every day is a learning experience. That's what this blog is about."
In meeting this premise, Paideia has been an unqualified success.
So, let's look at some photos and reflect upon the year that was.
At the intersection of Wilshire and Veteran in Westwood. Running around to all of these museums and galleries, I spent plenty of time sitting in LA traffic. Heck, I even got into an awful accident on the 405!!!
Agate Hand by Harold van Pelt at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. Many odd sight were seen.
D*Face mural at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, now hidden by recent construction. Before starting this blog, I was an occasional gallery visitor, but now it's a frequent occurance.
Fuchsias: South Coast. Perhaps the biggest change in my life has been my constant awareness of flowers for the Friday post. Previously, I liked flowers and sketched them on occasion, but now I'm always on the alert for these pretties. ;-)
WesterCon 64 in San Jose was fun, but the Tiki Dalek was the highlight for me. Yeah, I attend many strange conventions and social events.
Huntington Galleries displaying classic British art. Just some proof that I can do the high-falutin' stuff too.
Doubles and Couples - Turin Version (2008) by Haegue Yang, on view at LACMA. Although I do love traditional art and culture, I am always fascinated by the unusual, the peculiar. I may not end up "liking" the work, but I appreciate anything that forces me to think about matters, to reconsider my opinions and preferences.
The Japanese Garden (Suiho-en) in Van Nuys. Yeah, I also love the exotic and the foreign for the same reasons. I visited many gardens and came to appreciate the various approaches to laying them out.
Interior of the Skirball Cultural Center Tower. Sometimes, I'd just take a photo of something that caught my fancy, a scene or image of beauty or inspiration.
Princess figurines (Snow White, Cinderella, and Belle) from the Disney Traditions line. For all of my interest in high culture or alternative culture, I still maintain a love and interest in popular culture. From classic Disney cartoons to Billboard chart-toppers, I find pleasure and inspiration in the mass media ocean that surrounds me.
The biggest project that I've been pursuing for this blog has been the Pacific Standard Time event. It's been great fun and enlightening.
Phil (2011) by Comora Tolliver, on view at the Torrance Art Museum as part of the "To Live and Paint in LA" exhibition. Perhaps the biggest outcome of working on Paideia is that I'm now starting to use my blogging skills to help promote my local art museum, writing at Madrona Musings. I'm looking forward to it.
And that's a quick look at our year. I hope you've enjoyed it. I sincerely thank you all for following and reading this blog. Let's get ready for another year of celebrations and events, art and music, and, most importantly, lots of fun!!!
The Powerpuff Girls in 'Twas the Fight Before Christmas (2002)
It's been a couple of weeks since our last Wrap, but, since the posts have been coming at a slow pace, a result of holiday activities and poor health, there really hasn't been a need, when simply scrolling down the front page would reveal all that had been posted in the ensuing period.
But tonight we'll catch up on the situation. Moreover, we'll take note of Paideia's 400th post!!! Woo hoo!!! I've had a lot of fun writing on this blog. Hopefully, you've also enjoyed the journey to 400. :-)
I'm expecting the upcoming month to continue at a leisurely pace, perhaps ten posts per week. Family and friends and "holiday/year end" social functions will be cutting into my writing time. I might do a few more photo posts to keep up an engaging daily schedule. Whatever the situation, I hope we'll have a great time.
Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, from The Nightmare Before Christmas
Regarding arts and entertainment, we celebrated the birth date of Russian ballerina, Alexandra Danilova. We also paid a quick visit to the Torrance Art Museum to view the South Bay Focus exhibition. Our monthly Dance Party featured a fun mix of songs from over four decades.
Two posts celebrated animation. First, we enjoyed some cartoon thrills with the Powerpuff Girls. Then, we fondly reflected on the Toy Story series.
A traditional wooden sailing vessel off the coast of Hermosa Beach caught our attention for an "Image of the Day" post. Then we celebrated Thanksgiving. Woo hoo!!!
Until next time, here's your weekly weird.
Nothing spreads the Christmas spirit like an elf on a cannon. Ho Ho Ho!!!
When you head over to the Pacific Standard Time website to look at the exhibitions participating in this massive event, it looks like an impressive number, spanning a wide variety of topics and styles, but you don't realize its truly colossal scope and size until you actually attempt to make a comprehensive viewing, hitting gallery after gallery and museum upon museum, immersing your mind in a flood of art and craft, concept and design, creative visions speaking anew from decades past.
It's exhausting, but totally rewarding.
Having now visited ten venues, I've seen a significant percentage of the exhibitions currently on view. Although I hope to write up my PST experience in blog posts, it's not likely that I will be able to give a comprehensive report on each show that I've visited. So, if you have any questions about a specific event, feel free to ask me by leaving a comment on this post. I'll try to provide a prompt and full answer.
Wow! This is post #250. It took me six months to get to this number. That's not too shabby. I've had a good time sharing my thoughts and interests with you folks. I'm looking forward to reaching the next milestone number of 500. We have so much wonderful art, music, and cultural celebration waiting for our attention.
This week has been a bit slower than I'd prefer. I still need to get my art gallery reviews back into the production schedule. I feel that it adds a distinct focus to this blog that separates it from any other general culture blog. The Los Angeles art scene is filled with cool sights and ideas. I really ought to get more of these posts done. Over the next few weeks, a whole bunch of new shows will be opening. I promise to cover them.
Aside from that complaint, I'm pleased with the quality of variety of my blogging. What other blog features the music of Josquin des Prez, Charlie "Bird" Parker, and Bananarama in the same week? ;-)
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801) by Jacques-Louis David
So here are the ten posts of the week.
Our art blogging celebrated the birth date of the neoclassical French painter Jacques-Louis David. The we commemorated the birth date of Michael Jackson with some photos of Jeff Koons' Michael Jackson and Bubbles ceramic sculpture on display at LACMA.
As mentioned above, we had a wild week in music. We listened to High Renaissance polyphony in the music of Josquin des Prez. Then we celebrated the bebop genius of jazz great, Charlie "Bird" Parker. Finally, we enjoyed our monthly selection of dance music from the past four decades. Good stuff!!!
We missed out on Spooky Sunday this week, but our Friday Flowers took us to the colorful gardens at Heritage Court in Redondo Beach. And we listened to some Alicia Keys music. Oh, so pretty. . .
Our cinematic focus was given to the movies of Tim Burton. From Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) to Alice in Wonderland (2010), we celebrate his distinct creative vision and wish him a Happy Birthday.
A billboard advertising ABC's upcoming series Pan Am captured our interest in this ensemble period program. What's not to like about attractive ladies living the "high life" in the Jet Age? ;-)
In miscellaneous topics, we visited the duck pond at a former Nike missile base which has been converted into the Hopkins Wilderness Park in Redondo Beach. Finally, we said goodbye to a dear old Borders bookstore in Torrance.
And that's the week that was. Here's our traditional weirdness to end the post.
The Oogie Boogie Man from Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Wow! When I started this project, I didn't really expect it to work out. Especially when the technical difficulties hit in mid-March, I was marking my adventures into blogging as a certain failure. Well, when you hit One Hundred blog posts in a single quarter of activity, then you can count yourself as a "blogger".
Yeah, plenty of my early posts are glorified "link" posts: a picture, a vid, a link, and a paragraph of brief commentary. But I've gotten better. My basic template is still pic/comment/vid/link, but I think that the quality and quantity of my original content has dramatically improved. For instance, look at my posts regarding Roman History:
In Beware the Ides of March, I hardly provided more than a pic of Julius Caesar and a Wikipedia link. There really is no point to this post, except to point of the historical significance of the day. Grade = F
The situation is improved when we get to the birth date of Septimus Severus in And Scorn All Other Men. My original content is considerably better in that I provide some historical information as to why we should take note of the date. Moreover, there is a premise that I assert; Severus is an interesting historic figure who frequently gets undeservedly overlooked. However, in both cases, it's a "bare bones" argument. I could have put more "meat" into it. Grade = D
Finally, The Wellspring of Good marks the birth date of the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius. In this post, I put a decent amount of effort explaining why I admire this historic figure. The accompanying vid is fairly informative. My links are helpful to any reader that has interest in learning more about Marcus Aurelius. Grade = C
Caesar, Aurelius, Severus
Alright, that still averages a D Grade, but the trend is positive. And that gives me hope. This whole blogging thing doesn't come easily to me. Being able to discern such rapid improvement over a two month period makes me happy.
As regards my readership, it fairly minimal at this point. However, I don't really expect too much more than that, seeing as how I've done zero promotion. My feelings are that, before I can go out and ask people to check out my blog, I need to have reached a certain grade of quality, quantity, and regularity. This post marks my attainment of the "quantity" pre-req. Hurray!!!
Now, I need to keep working on the quality and continue maintaining regularity of content production. I'm averaging a little under three posts per day over the last month. That's a decent production rate for an amateur blog, but it can be improved. There needs to be enough new material over the course of a week to make regular visit to Paideia worthwhile. Three posts a day is the minimum average, in my estimation.
So, to celebrate Post 100, here are the Top 5 articles, according to my readership's interests:
1) Gateway: Japan at the Torrance Art Museum. This article was my third museum post. My first museum post was about the Pacific Asia Museum in To Cross the Magpie Bridge, which was light on text and average on photos. My second post was about UCLA's Fowler Museum in Places to See: Fowler Museum at UCLA, which reversed the problem: good text and no photos. Apparently, Gateway: Japan got the combo just right. ;-)
Capitoline Donkey by Nobuhito Nishigawara
2) Sweet Music Soft and Mellow is another museum post, focusing on my visit to LACMA in which a saw a performance by Denise Donatelli and the Magna Carta. Woo hoo!!!
3) Demons of the Wind is another museum post, featuring a review of an exhibit of Roberto Cuoghi's work at the Hammer Museum. The readers seem to be coming from different areas for this post. Half are art enthusiasts looking for info on Cuoghi. Half are gamers looking for stuff on the demon, Pazuzu. Interesting combo.
Here's a vid that might appeal to either crowd:
4) That They Were Fair is an art post about the works of Daniel Chester French. I give my assessment of his style and provide a few links, and an interesting vid. Kind of an odd post to have such a comparatively high readership, but that's cool.
5) Precarious Transition from Girl to Woman is another art post, featuring the photo series "Sparrow Lane" by Holly Andres. It is my third post regarding the use of tableaux. I'm guessing that the readership for this post comes from Nancy Drew enthusiasts. Hmm. . .
The Pink Chair by Holly Andres
In any case, it looks like the area that generates the greatest interest in my readership is the "Art Blog" material. That's cool. I enjoy writing those types of posts, although they generally take significant prep time. As long as I can make time for visiting museums or galleries, I'll have some art blogging for you all. :-)
In any case, thanks for reading. Here's to the next 100 blog posts!!!
