I’m happy to announce the launch of a new Tumblr site that will be a combination of my multimedia art portfolio, blog, and an experiment that explores the creative process. The Tumblr site replaces this WordPress blog as my main blog for now, but this one will continue to exist as an archive and may be revisited in the future. I encourage followers of this blog to also follow me on Tumblr, as I will not be sending out obnoxious announcements about things being posted.
The site is here: //thedannelson.tumblr.com/
Examples of the process will be provided by my art, since I’m more familiar with it than anyone else’s, and since it proves somewhat of a conundrum. What thematic elements or ideas or energies are common to this work that exists in many media? Am I writer? or an artist? or a musician? or a blogger? or visual? or conceptual? In response to the puzzled looks of strangers at cocktail parties, this site will explore these questions in a playful way, one that seeks answers but does not seek to limit possibilities or impinge on the expansiveness of the mind. Or = and.
I’ll be posting, in rough chronological order occasionally interrupted by thematic association, works that I have made with a short text to accompany them, one work at a time, at least once a day (there are hundreds and hundreds of pieces.) Sometimes I’ll post the work of an artist or musician or writer friend with commentary or reflection. Each post will be tagged with a date, medium, themes or ideas, and any other relevant info that will allow you to filter work as you wish. Work made under the age of 10 will be shown and, for the purposes of this site/experiment, will have the same weight as those in the DN canon.
Go here: //thedannelson.tumblr.com/
I don’t have a gallery after all, and nothing is at stake publicly, despite this being the age of (simultaneously) oversharing and an overattention to and concern with one’s image and branding. The flipside and one of the positive aspects of this Age, however, is that you can bring people along so they can discover things with you. There’s a quote on the wall at Atlantic Center for the Arts by Gilles Deleuze that blew my mind open last week, and continues to every time it pops up: “Art is not a notion but a motion; it is not important what art is, but rather what it does.” The perfect polished artwork, blog post, picture, etc. is not relevant to this project, which is about process, motion, and energy. (Strangely enough, I’m not totally against commodities, but not everything is or should be a commodity, just ask the shaman about his mask or mojo stick.)
In the spirit of Process Process Process, please contribute to it by commenting, challenging, and asking questions–nothing is finished here or anywhere else, a painting in storage is not finished, an unheard piece of music ceases to exist, there is no such thing as a one-sided conversation.
A discography of my music is available at //thedannelson.com/music.
A current portfolio of my professional marketing and design work is at //thedannelson.com.
Let’s go deep, people.