Life of a Blogger

I have put this blog off for a few years now but as “Missives from the Art World” completes its sixth year of publication, it seems as good a time as any!  The thought first came to me waiting for a train in Heidelberg, Germany, a beautiful university town, which was one of the places that my father studied.  I made a few short notes then but decided that two years was too short a time for that blog to be written.

It all started because my associate, Vince Hickman, said to me that people enjoyed my stories, so it was a way of staying in touch even if the gallery no longer existed and I was, already in transition to Santa Fe.

My wife also writes, but she is a scholar who finds a subject and delves deeply into it.  She will often work with original documents for which she must go to the library.  She can spend months on a single article while I am knocking these pieces out on a weekly basis, so they are naturally not as thorough.  But then we are not trying to achieve the same goals.  Penelope is trying to teach while I am looking merely to entertain and hopefully make my reader think or even gain a new world-view.

 Blogging began in the electronic age and became the phenomenon it has become with the Internet.  It is more personal and independent than any previous form of publication.  No matter its faults and there are many one can still get a lot more information on the internet on a lot more subjects than from any single encyclopedia of old.  When people talk to me about the errors on the Internet I point out that one can find errors in many books if one does not pick up the “right” one!

Looking back now I see that my weekly blog was an incredible discipline for structure but,
my problems in writing and subject matter have changed in the last years.  As I have cut way down on my European travel, my trips have become more U.S. oriented and less frequent so I sit at my computer almost every week thinking what is worth writing about.  Sometimes it is pretty late in the week until I have an idea. 

I have lots of help because after I write, my wife edits, which at times is stressful for both of us!  Then my text is sent off with images that I have received, taken or found and put in Dropbox for my Blog Guru, Vince Hickman in New Jersey.  He figures out how to insert the images, and sometimes edits them in Photoshop or splices the videos and publishes the blog at midnight Sunday, Eastern Standard Time.  Then early on Monday he corrects any mistakes I or someone else finds.

BTW, I have had a few friends point out mistakes that I have made on a regular basis. Thank goodness most of those corrections are of a grammatical nature.  I am extremely pleased with those who point out errors because, first of all it shows that someone has read the Missive, and second because what is posted on the Internet will not disappear.  If I write about a Rothschild for instance, Google or some other search engine will pick that up, so years from now someone might stumble on my piece and it will have been corrected.

Almost every week I think, why am I doing this?  I have continued even through a number of surgeries and so far I have done 52 a year every year. and every week I wonder whether I will, or want to, continue!  I realize, however, that I derive pleasure from getting new ideas and researching those simple subjects that turn out not to be so simple.  Learning more is always stimulating, if also frustrating at times.

There is another reason that I continue, there are people who seem to appreciate it and that makes it worth doing.   I was sitting in a lecture in New York last year when a curator from the Getty Museum tapped me on the shoulder and said,  “I read your blog and particularly enjoy it when you write about the old days.”  That is not only an ego booster but makes me realize maybe I should tell some of my old stories.  Then I will see someone who I have not seen in years and they tell me they have been following my blog.  I had a museum director, once, say hello and start to tell me all the places I had been recently.  I said, “how did you know that” … you know the answer.  Not long ago I was asked whether I was interested in joining a very important board in Santa Fe and discussed it with 2 good friends, an art person and a lawyer in town.  I said it would take so much time to do the work properly for this board that I would have to make a choice between the board and the blog.  Since they had both encouraged me to join the board I was totally surprised when they both said, “Do the blog”.

What will I write about next week???

Me & Social Media

This Cartoon in Time magazine, by John Atkinson, caught my attention and after I smiled I started to think about how I related to it.  First of all, I tried to figure out the symbols.  Going clockwise we had Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Vine, Pinterest and Instagram.  Which do I actually use on a regular basis? Facebook, but I was recently told that only old people use that.  Things are certainly moving fast these days and Facebook is the oldest of the bunch. Interesting since Facebook only came into existence just over a decade ago.

I thought that I was somewhat up to date, technologically speaking, but I had not even heard of Vine the site that gives you a chance to post 6 second looping videos.  So it is not surprising that shortly after it was founded, Twitter, the 140 character site, acquired it.

How many sites can one be on without devoting yourself totally to social-media?   One of the main reasons that old people use Facebook is because their children told them that if they want to see images of their grandchildren they would have to go onto the site.  In spite of the fact that Facebook has over a billion and a half monthly visitors, I know many people who say they don’t want to be controlled by any website.  That is anyone’s privilege but personally I think that they are missing out on a valuable 21st century tool.  For me, it works as a national and even international phone book, as does LinkedIn.  When I am looking for a museum person that is not on my Rolodex or more likely has changed their institution I can usually find them in one of those two places.

Often when someone asks me to link with them on LinkedIn I ask what purpose it serves other than the one mentioned above and the answer is invariably, “I don’t know but I believe one should do it”.  There is no question, however, that it is the professional site where you can tell people the business you are in and where, if you get enough accolades from others, someone might reach out to do business with you.  It can also help if you want to learn about someone that you are supposed to meet at a dinner party.  It is the same as you once might have used the various editions of “Who’s Who”.  Another question it brings up, is who to accept and who to reject on LinkedIn.  I used to not accept contemporary artists because I could not help them being a dealer in Old Masters but I have given up and figure if an artist wants to be connected to me, why not?!

I have posted my missives on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and they have reached people in diverse parts of the world that I would certainly not have met from my website or emails.  In that way people who I have lost touch with for years find me again.

While I post links to my missives on Twitter I don’t feel I am either interesting enough or have enough to say to post regularly.  In my mind I have not closed the door entirely on the possibility of getting more involved there as well.

I read that Pinterest is the hottest website out there and that it is being used as the ultimate sales tool.  There are some major people on it.  I have seen beautiful images of the work a major decorator, Robert Couturier, has done and I can certainly see how these are marvelous seductions for new clients.  I have posted there and need to develop it more. However, from all the images I have posted only one  has been repeatedly reposted.

Maybe someone would like to help me with Instagram.  I post photos fairly regularly on Facebook and I gather Instagram is devoted to images so I may eventually go there as well since I downloaded the app quite a while ago.

I believe that after 40 years of marriage my dating days are over so I had not heard of Tinder until my son told me that he found his girlfriend there and that they live within walking distance of each other --and so far so good!

Google +  seems to have given up the ghost and is backing down.  Which leaves Vine, which I will really have to look into!

Somehow, I never thought of YouTube as social-media but now I realize that I have often posted links from my Missives to YouTube and Vimeo (not mentioned in the ME cartoon) as well.

I seem to be more involved with social-media than I thought I was when I started this Missive but it has not taken over my life.  It has been a very useful tool both for fun and business.  There are those who say it takes the place of personal interaction but I would argue that it actually contributes to the possibilities of meeting and connecting with people.

For those who remain unconvinced I am sure you will enjoy the following article that was recently sent to me by a friend abroad.

The Birth of the Personal Computer

Some time ago I mentioned how I was in Albuquerque and hoped to see the semi-permanent exhibition “STARTUP: Albuquerque and the Personal Computer Revolution” but the galleries were temporarily closed.  I finally saw it on a return visit and I am glad I did.

The reason the show is in Albuquerque at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science is because it all started here with Bill Gates, Paul Allen and the Ed Roberts.  Not surprisingly the idea for the exhibition was Paul Allen’s.  As a matter of fact he still has a home here  in Santa Fe.

He and his sister Joe Allen Patton and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation put up the lion’s share of the funds for the gallery.  The exhibition is amended from time to time but shows no signs of closing.  They certainly won’t close it when it is still so popular with children and their parents.

My introduction to the computer was when I was a small boy in the early 1950’s and I visited my father’s art gallery, Rosenberg & Stiebel.  Across the street on 57^th Street and Madison Avenue was the IBM building.  This was long before the Edward Larrabee Barnes building opened in 1983.  The entire Madison Avenue side was devoted to large windows through which you could see ENIAC or UNIVAC, the early computers that took up most of the rooms.  They were gigantic machines with tapes spinning round and round.  That was as close as one could get to a “laptop”!

Even by the early 1970’s your home computer would cost you about $20,000 and it would be the size of a small refrigerator.  Of course, you would also need to know one of the three most common programming languages of the time, Basic, Cobol or Fortran.

The exhibition is not complicated and the labels are not in computerize.  Small children can grasp the ideas and there are many objects that anyone can relate to such as a transistor radio.  I owned one in the late 1950’s that I remember cost $300.  It was a Zenith which was then a big name in radios.  Today you can find the equivalent for as little as $15.  You can even find an iPod for $50.

I liked the fact that one of the exhibits was an erector set.  Admittedly, it looked like a rather advanced one but it was the kind of toy that could lead to exploration and invention.

I could imagine how a child with a mind like a Bill Gates, Paul Allen or Steve Jobs could go from playing with an erector set to being what Bill Gates calls a “computer nerd” He said that, “Anyone who spends their life on a computer is pretty unusual.”  Then, of course, one needs an inquisitive mind and the patience to stick with it.

Add to that a vivid imagination of what could be.  Paul Allen writes, “I was always thinking about the future as a kid.  When you’re a kid, you think anything is possible.”   “I saw the idea that combining a microprocessor with BASIC was going to be a powerful thing” and that is what Gates and Allen set out to do.  They succeeded and tried it on a computer they had never seen before, the Altair, and eventually it came together and worked.  The Altair came to public attention in 1975 when it was introduced as a kit that it’s designer, Ed Roberts, thought would only be bought by a few hundred hobbyists. Instead it caught the attention of thousands.  Ed Roberts became the third member of the original Microsoft team.

It all began in a garage in New Mexico and grew from there.  Microsoft is still very much with us but there has been a strong competitor in recent years, Apple.  As mentioned the exhibition gets amended from time to time and now there is a corner devoted to Apple.  It is a generous gesture both on the part of the Museum and the sponsors of the exhibition.

It’s less than 40 years since the PC made it’s debut and the world wide web is less than 25 years old yet they have become so much part of our lives that it is hard to remember being without them.  Steve Jobs summed it up with a quote that appears at the end of the show, “The Journey is the Reward.” 

Enrichment Through Technology

I hear from all sides the disparagement of technology, at the same time said individual turns on the microwave to heat up dinner and turns on the TV.

Nobody reads anymore. Then why are the Kindle and other electronic book readers doing so well?

Nobody writes letters any more, then why do we produce millions of emails every day.

Some of us remember the Texaco broadcasts with Milton Cross on Saturday afternoons from the Metropolitan Opera. We had friends and relatives across the country who were glued to their radios to hear that week’s opera. So the concept of the simulcast is nothing new but it has gotten a lot better. Not only has video been added but it has been improved technologically and the cinematographer has learned how to use his/her camera to capture the essence of the theater experience; the feeling that you are participating in the original performance with the audience in the theater.

In the last decade technology has brought the arts ever closer to us. The other night we went to the Lensic theater here in Santa Fe to see a Simulcast of Hamlet from The National Theater in London. It was a much acclaimed new production and had received excellent reviews. It was, of course, not exactly a simulcast since I doubt that the play went from 2 AM to 6 AM in London but it was a film of the actual production having taken place in London that evening. The next evening many went back to the Lensic to see a simulcast of Don Carlo from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. We see and hear the audience that is watching the production live, as well, giving us even more the feeling of participation in the actual event.

The next day we went to the inauguration of several new additions to the New Mexico Museum of Art’s website. To my surprise part of the pitch was that you can enjoy the museum without actually setting foot inside the door.

I must admit to having been a little shocked. Whenever I speak to classes or groups I tell them that they have to engage with the original work of art, that reproductions are no substitute. But I do not think that the museum director was suggesting that there is no longer a reason to go to actually go into the museum or the theater for that matter. Then I remembered when Barnes & Noble and Borders started putting coffee bars and reading areas allowing the visitors to linger and sample their wares. The result more people bought more.

Many of us do not have easy access to the original. We may be across the state, the country or in another country altogether. The Metropolitan Opera has a finite number of seats for a particular performance so even if you live across the street you might not be able to get a seat... not to mention that those seats are extremely expensive. Why shouldn’t the family in Timbuktu have access to the arts as well.

The website of the New Mexico Museum of Art offers much of the permanent collection on line with a tasting from all their departments, only a fraction of which can be on view in the museum at any one time. Of course, the exhibitions that are showing at the museum are also on the site with images and teasers about forthcoming exhibitions. What I found the most innovative is the section called “New Mexico Art Tells New Mexico History”. Like all internet sites this one is a work in progress but at the moment there is a section on ‘Ancestral Peoples’, ‘Opening of the West’, ‘Growing New Mexico’, and ‘People, Places and Politics’. This is a wonderful tool designed for use in New Mexico schools to supplement the social studies curriculum, but it can also serve the visitor new to New Mexico or new to an art museum. What a wonderful way for a parent or teacher to prepare a child for a visit. In turn that child will have the background knowledge to make his or her own discoveries.

As technology improves it can bring the art experience closer to us and make the entry to the museum or theater all the more thrilling.