Been plenty of distractions to get to this point. I have been wanting to do a blog for quite a while. The business of art blows. Finding time to paint, or print, is hard enough without the making time for self promotion, framing, etc. when you have a day job. This blog is really for me. A place where I can document process, and notes on my studio, and my art. I offer it publicly so that maybe someone might find my struggles of becoming an artist helpful in their own plight.
I looked at a lot of other artist websites, to see who they used to host their sites and how they used the sites they created. It seemed, from this review, that most artists felt the need for a static repository for information about them, and there works; a sort of virtual resume. In addition, they used separate social media or a blog sites to reach out for self promotion purposes. I found that, with the exception of only a few very successful artists, websites were not used as a sales vehicle. Setting up a blog means having a website and a blog account. I had neither six months ago. So I thought that I would start by creating a website on one of those free sites that you read about.
I did some research and found my way to 000webhost With experience in web design I put up my sight and within a month I found myself dealing with a whole host of issues like, limited bandwidth, storage limits, and very inconsistent up-time. So very quickly I found myself looking around for a permanent solution. What I found was that 000webhost was really a company operation under hostinger I couldn’t export the free website that I had spent a month designing in a format suitable for porting over to a new pay for hosting site. If I went with a new host I would have to redesign the website using their templates. I reluctantly decided to use hostinger and save myself having to rebuild a website that I was happy with. The final salt in the wound came when I went to register and pay with hostinger I did so on a weekend. My credit card was locked because hostinger operates out of a foreign country, Cypress. Banks find dealing with business in this part of the world unsecure, so I had to wait until the following Monday to authorize the my bank to make payment to this company. Whew… Since that time I have found that this hosting company has been surprisingly responsive and I have zero down time. Have a look!
