I keep trying!

Yes, I keep trying to figure out and apply all the newfangled widgets, and I think I'm actually getting someplace. As in linking this blog to my facebook personal and artist pages so that it automatically appears there. And I need to link facebook to my other blog here and my blog on MyPhotoMentor.com also.

I'm think I'm supposed to be twittering for MPM right now, and after I finish writing this I'll check the schedule laid out for me. If so, I'll have my first go at twittering. It is fascinating to learn how to communicate with these tools as a way of learning and of growing.

Still, it seems that my life in the "Wilderness of Ethereal Boundlessness" (better know by it's acronym, the "web")is still a bit ... disconnected ... from itself at times. I look forward to learning how to integrate all this more smoothly than I do now. And through all this, I work at keeping focused on my life as an artist and teacher/mentor, besides husband/father/woodcutter extraordinaire.

And speaking of woodcutting, if this cold I've got lets up a bit I'll probably be back out with the chainsaw in the morning. I've still got several acres of lawn covered with the massive limbs and brushwood that fell during the ice-storm back in December. I do enjoy my time working on the property, it is almost a meditative act for me. Maybe I'll do a bit of pruning on another fruit tree too. There are always options, aren't there?

The Age of Now

In all the years I've been a professional artist, I've never spent so much time in front of a computer as I do now. Is this trend going to continue on a continually expanding basis? If so, in another couple months, I'll have to sleep while working the computer!

And yet, this is the way we keep in touch with our fellow humans today. Blogs. Twitter. Facebook. Text and multi-media messages through cell phones. Email. Does your RSS feed your twitter off your facebook? or is it the other way around?

To give some personal satisfaction, I've been taking voice lessons and have a competition coming up that I'll sing in. The Oregon National Association of Teachers of Singing Classical Auditions. The organization of course is normally known by its acronym, NATS. And the rules and entry forms are all on the website, download the appropriate pdf file.

Ah, but the singing is still live, person to person. It's thrilling and terrifying and a steep learning curve and I love it. But even there, there are some intriguing differences from what you would think.

The singing you learn to do by feel rather than sound, as you work through how it sounds with an "external" set of ears, your teacher. And as all performance singing involves presenting the meaning of the text, it is acting. And what is a major key in learning to act, to involve the emotions of those who watch? You go internal, into a sort of la-la-land you create around the story of the text, and make the audience disappear from your head!

So, the singing is done by feel, and the emotive acting is done by shutting out all external physical sensors, including awareness of the audience you are trying to move. And professional artists spend most of their time communicating through computers.

Nothing is as it seems, I think!