During the time I painted this year, I kept a painting diary of sorts. I did so to record thoughts I might have wanted to keep during the painting process. What surprised me is that I really don't think much while I paint, except for observations that were directly focused on my work. I think about the weather a lot (is it going to rain?), and whether I'm out of the way of the traffic so that I don't get hit. This last thought comes up every so often because I tend to paint along the side of the road at times. I also think about the concrete specifics of my subject. By that, I mean the lighting, the color, the shape, and things like that. Speaking of color, I also think about where that tube of paint was that I bought?, or which brush do I need now? I had thought that I might have spent a little time considering deeper or more profound ideas, but that does not seem to be the case. Instead, I find that I tend to be more focused on the subject at hand than I ever was at the job I did for so many years.
This brings me to the blog. I don't know how profound it will be, but I really hope you don't bring any real hope that it will be. Blogs are a nice idea. In fact they really are a great one, so I see nothing wrong with having one. As I mention in my bio, I write and narrate (and edit) a podcast on the history of the movies, and one of the things that I wish existed, and yet does not, are these small, personal observations and narratives made by the participant of that history, such as the actors, both male and female, or a director, or event people who worked on the sets, in order to get some sense of how they thought as this process evolved from a scientific experiment into an industry. So far, my history has been about the silent era, and the voices of so many of those people seems to have been lost. That's really a shame. I find its those small, personal touches that bring history to life, such as a person explaining how they suffered through spending a frigid day making a movie out in a city par - what did they do to keep warm, or what kind of jokes did they tell each other in order to distract themselves from the cold. One hint is that they set up burn barrels and spent a lot of time standing by them.
Finally, I'll set myself some ground rules for this blog. I'll try to publish at the beginning of the month. Not only is sticking to a schedule important, the first of the month is easy to remember. (By pure chance, I just found out that today is the beginning of December.) Staying on task is something I struggle with in my podcast. Also, instead of a general ramble, it's kind of suggested that as a blogger, I pick out topics to write about. For most of the people who come to this site, and, especially, to this page, your interest may be more in what I'm working on or what I've experienced while working, rather than the ramblings of artistic esoteric subjects. So art related topics will probably be something I address when things are a little slower.
So if you've managed to suffer through this entry so far, look for more of them at the first of any given month. I do believe that this website service (Wix), has some kind of app that I install in order for you to receive this in your inbox. What you'll probably have to do is fill leave you name and e-mail address somewhere on this site. Probably, this will be either on this page, or the contact page. It might even have been the button I just deleted. Alan
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