Running a website (and more particularly, writing a blog) is a puzzling business. Week by week, and day by day, my material is made available to the world out there, but it is hard to guess what is the effect of this and how it is being received. As the majority of artists I know maintain their own websites (although not many of them write blogs) this must be a fairly general problem for all of us.
Every week-end I take a look at the software package I have, linked to my site, which tells me what has been the pattern of its use. In many respects this is an encouraging experience, in that the number of visits to the site remains fairly high, although fluctuating to some degree from month to month. The fact which set me thinking about this question is the relatively large number of visitors I’ve had during January to the site as a whole. This stands in contrast, however, to the fact that there has been a bit of a dip in the number of readers of the blog. In either case I have little idea of where to look for an explanation. It could all be quite different (on the basis of past experience) next month.
The puzzle deepens when I start to look at the detail in finer grain. It does not surprise me that the majority of visitors use the site at week-ends. I suppose that looking around the internet is a part of the pattern of week-end leisure activities of many people. There is another dramatic peak in use, however, on Tuesdays. It really is quite startling: but I have absolutely no idea why that should be so. Possibly even more perplexing is the fact that there is a truly remarkable surge in activity at around 3.00 in the morning, by our time. Now, I am aware that people do visit my site from many different parts of the world, but I am not sure exactly where on the surface of the globe this might seem to be a particularly good time to look up the activities of somebody living in Bradford, in the UK. It is a truly astonishing and sudden concentration of activity over a period of about one hour. My imagination is running riot!
In fact, this situation does reflect something general, and quite important, about the life and work experience of artists. Our work appears regularly in exhibitions, but the chances of getting any worthwhile feedback from the people who view is fairly small. Even if we do manage to engage people in conversation either while they are looking at our work (or, better still, when they have decided to buy it) the feedback we are given is often quite limited. It really is quite hard to tell what exactly is happening out there.
I discovered that this morning, when during my child-care visit to Sheffield I sneaked in a quick portrait of my small grandson. I think that he understood the general idea of a portrait (which is OK for a 3-year-old) but I have no idea what he made of it. In return, I came home with the backs of my hands decorated with small pussy-cat paw prints, in black ink.