Haven't been posting very often for a while, however, I spent a little time today perusing the "Communities" page and we now have so many choices... and it made me happy because there are many of us here (and back on Hive's "predecessor") who remember being promised these a very long time ago.
Of course, there are so many choices... and I spent a little time looking at many of them, while considering what to do next — if anything at all.
Apricot blossoms — photo rendered as a drawing
Mind you, simply because a community exists doesn't mean that it's active or worthwhile to be part of. Which got me to thinking about relevance.
Based on what I have seen around hive, I suppose many fall victims to the temptation to just try to "carpet bomb" the place with loads of posts with loads of tags... perhaps (inadvertently?) turning Communities into something akin to a latter-day version of bid bots, albeit in a much subtler way.
Greed seems to be a pervasive human quality... hard to get away from it, even in communities based on idealism.
The original photo I am playing around with...
Being RELEVANT...
At the moment, I am subscribed to a number of communities that seem relevant to an art and photography related blogs... and that seem more about quality than quantity.
I am also more interested in groups that are more about content than rewards extraction. Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but sometimes it almost feels like there is limited room for actual original posting, created from scratch. Still, the content grade has improved a good bit since Hive became a thing, a year ago.
Call me silly, but it seems to me that in order for a community to be a community and retain some sort of cohesiveness, the content in the community should be relevant and on-topic. Otherwise... what's the point?
Black-and-white version
Clearly, I still have a lot to consider, here.
But I do seriously want to continue with this as an "art blog" of sorts, even though there is no "Red Dragonfly Gallery" anymore.
New things are always hard to learn.
Meanwhile, the World Has Melted Down...
Not that it has much to do with art, but as I write this, not only have we just had the first anniversary of Hive, we're also at the one year mark (approximately) of dealing with the debacle and fallout resulting from the Covid-19 ________-demic (fill in word of your choosing).
In truth, it actually does have something to do with art, because for those of us who create art (or are engaged in other creative fields) with an eye towards scraping together some version of "a living" or at least a part time income, this kind of situation is really bad news.
"But WHY?" you might be asking.
Rendered as a painting...
Well, because when there's some kind of crisis and people feel anxious about their jobs, their lives, and even their future, the creative world tends to suffer. It doesn't suffer in the creative sense (after all, there's more TIME to create, these days), it suffers because what we offer the world is perceived as non-essential, and thus our "funding" tends to be near the top of the list of things people cut from their budgets.
Which is a bit depressing, I suppose... but what can you do?
Anyway, just scribbling some randomish notes in between listing items for sale on our eBay.
Thanks for reading!
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All images are our own